


All That We See or Seem

by Kitsunebi_UK



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Academia, Addiction, Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Baseball, Boston Massachusetts, California, Canon homage, Communes, Compulsive Overeating, Dancing, Depression, Domestic Fluff, Domestic victuuri, Drama, ESP, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Food, Futuristic Technology, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, M/M, Many facets of love, Mention of psychosis, Mild parental abuse/neglect, Multiple Sex Positions, Music, Pining, Romance, Saving each other's lives, Science Fiction, Secrets, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Trains, Victor's family - Freeform, Virgin Katsuki Yuuri, futuristic setting, mild violence, neuroscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 81
Words: 431,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsunebi_UK/pseuds/Kitsunebi_UK
Summary: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2048: Yuuri Katsuki came to MIT looking for answers. Now an associate professor of neuroscience, his career looks promising on the surface – but it’s not bringing him any closer to what he craves: an understanding of this strange ability he possesses. Contacted psychically by people in turmoil, he does his best to help them. He calls it ESP, though most everyone else in his life who’s known about it has called it crazy.There is one other thing Yuuri craves: to meet his idol on an even footing and show him what he’s capable of. Dr. Victor Nikiforov, world-renowned expert in neuroscience. A groundbreaker. A trendsetter. And desirable as hell. When he turns up unexpectedly in Yuuri’s office one day, offering to be his research partner, Yuuri is bewildered – and thrilled. Of course, Victor never has to find out about the ESP or the other awkward things Yuuri hides.But Yuuri isn’t the only one with secrets. When others finally come to light, causing him to flee for his life, he is forced to question everything – and everyone – he thought he knew and trusted…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Even though I’m releasing this story episodically, it’s complete and edited. I’m aiming to post several chapters every Friday – it’s a long one! (81 chapters in 11 parts, with illustrations.) But that’s because a lot happens, and at the same time I wanted to explore Yuuri’s and Victor’s thoughts and feelings, and their wonderful relationship, in depth. I’ve also developed a world set 30 years in the future, where things are a little different but the same in many ways too. Trends we’re seeing today, both encouraging and alarming, will be coming to fruition…
> 
> Fluff, angst, and ‘smut’ (loving sex) are all here too – though please bear in mind it’s a slow burn. This story will take you up hills, only for you to discover how high you’ve climbed and how far down you’re looking, just before it tips you over the edge – so I’d like to invite you to come along for the ride! 
> 
> However dark it gets for these characters, I love them, and this is another homage to the anime – and to this amazing fandom whose creative output and enthusiasm and support seem to know no bounds. See if you can spot the references to canon, though these will appear more often at the beginning of the story. 
> 
> A final note regarding the scientific content and language in this story…Yuuri and Victor discuss some issues that arise due to the ESP theme, such as the nature of consciousness, and materialism – the approach that mainstream science has taken for hundreds of years which assumes that everything that can be known is outside of ourselves and can only be understood (and is therefore only valid) through the five senses alone. While I hope some readers will find this interesting, none of it is crucial to the plot. _And_ , after the first several chapters, big changes are afoot that take this story in a completely new direction, which has little to do with science! So if it seems daunting at first, please persevere – you may well be glad you did.
> 
> You will also see technobabble that isn’t _meant_ to be understood, because it’s mostly nonsense that gives a sheen of credibility to Yuuri and Victor as neuroscientists. I am not a neuroscientist myself, so that was the only way I could do it! Think of things like _Doctor Who_ and _Star Trek_ and reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, etc., and you’ll catch my drift. The science – like the skating in the anime – while important to these characters, is a frame to hang bigger themes on. And love is the biggest and best of all.
> 
>  
> 
> _Contributors_  
>  Illustrations by the talented min-min-minnie – find her on Tumblr [here.](http://min-min-minnie.tumblr.com)
> 
> For her invaluable and ultra-reliable support through the often tumultuous process of writing this story, I am deeply grateful to Themayflynans. I highly recommend her food-for-the-soul Victuuri one-shots [here on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themayflynans/works), and you can find her on Tumblr [here](http://themayflynans.tumblr.com). 
> 
> And once again, heartfelt thanks to Mazarin221b for her astute plotting advice – check out her extensive library of fics [here on AO3,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b) (YOI, Sherlock and others), and find her on Tumblr [here](http://mazarin221b.tumblr.com).
> 
> _Music_  
>  There are contemporary (2040s) musical styles, artists and songs in the story, but Yuuri and Victor love a good tune from any decade or century, from Bach to the kilt-clad Bonnie Beasties – just don’t ask them to listen to Chris’s loud shack music! Where songs are referenced that exist in our time, I’ll link to them in the notes at the end of the chapter. It’s an eclectic range!
> 
> _Food_  
>  If you’ve read my other fics, you’ll know that this is always a feature too, to some extent. Look in the chapter notes for the recipes to some of Yuuri and Victor’s favorites. I promise I’ve tried them all myself, and they’re too good not to share!

 

 

_…everybody wants to put me down_

_They say I’m goin’ crazy_

_They say I got a lot of water in my brain_

_I got no common sense_

_I got nobody left to believe in_

_Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah_

_Oh, Lord_

_Somebody, somebody_

_Can anybody find me somebody to love?_

_Queen,_ [“ _Somebody to Love_ ”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijpcUv-b8M)

 

_[Afraid]_

_[It’s OK. We’ve been over this, remember? It’s OK.]_

_[Afraid]_

_[You don’t need to be. It’s OK. It’s possible to have control over this. I do. You can, too.]_

_[No – not of that. Of them.]_

_[Who’s them?]_

_[They’re coming…AFRAID]_

_[Calm down. I’m here. Help me to understand.]_

_[They’ve found me. I CAN’T GET AWAY AFRAIDAFRAIDAFRAID]_

_[Who? What’s happening?]_

_[…]_

_[Are you there? Hello?]_

_[…]_

_[Shit]_

 

Like the burn of the sun on the inside of the eye, after looking too close…an after-image, slowly fading…

A long, thin black snake coiled around the smooth oval of an egg.

He knew that symbol. Too well. And was still not any closer to understanding what it meant.

Only that anyone who saw it never contacted him again.

 

 

 

**December, 2047**

**Cambridge, Massachusetts**

 

Yuuri slung his leather carryall over his shoulder and adjusted his scarf as he stepped off the T with the stream of other commuters and made his way through the station toward the stairs.

_Ten a.m., fatty acids. Partial aetiology of inflammation. I wonder where I stored those diagrams. Students won’t thank me if I don’t have my stuff ready._

With hardly a glance at the motley assortment of posters and advertisements on the tiled walls, he slid a gloved hand up the rail as he made his way to the world above, a gust of chill air assailing him and snapping him briefly out of his reverie. He noted without interest the low murmur around him of conversations with distant partners via chip; the rush of trains below and the computerized voice announcing arrivals and departures; café doors opening with puffs of warmth and brewing coffee and baking danishes. Yuuri allowed himself to be swept along with the wave of business-dressed people, most of them traveling alone and looking straight ahead, like him; their minds elsewhere. It was simply another A-to-B moment, the same one they’d perhaps experienced almost daily for years, and it passed with a blank familiarity.

Yuuri’s feet had wanted to lead him straight to the usual connecting train on the Red Line from here, but he was planning to walk the second half of the journey today, stopping at the indoor market downtown for a few odds and ends. It wasn’t a decent hour for anyone to be up and about, he thought, but plenty of people already were; and he’d discovered from experience that it was better to go before work while the stallholders still had what he wanted in stock than after he had put in a long day and was only interested in getting home.

_Post-synaptic changes during early synapse formation in hippocampal neurons. I ought to pick that up where I left off yesterday._

The market hall was already busy when he entered, and he navigated to the well-known stalls that sold what he wanted, his coat pressing against the soft winter wraps of the other shoppers. Christmas lights, strung across the rafters, flashed red and green, and the seasonal tunes wrestled with the stallholders’ voices as they hawked their wares.

Yuuri wanted to carve a space out around himself – a silent cocoon where the sensory bombardment couldn’t reach. But the only alternative was to buy the more pedestrian – and often more expensive – goods sold by Boston’s only supermarket chain. So he steeled himself and dove in.

Hand-made cocoa-butter soap. Eggs laid by the chickens in the stallholder’s garden. Unpasteurized honey from a local beekeeper. Vegetables for a stir-fry. Admittedly, those were not locally produced at this time of year. But they were cheap and good.

“What’s doin’, Yuuri?” the bald middle-aged aproned shopkeeper, Dave, asked in his loud and friendly voice as he packed Yuuri’s choices – celery, broccoli, bell peppers, onions, garlic. Yuuri knew he liked to banter, so he slipped on a polite mask and gave him the local spiel.

“Oh, the usual,” he answered, adjusting his knitted hat, pulling it a little lower over his forehead, concealing his brown bangs. “I heard the Celts cleaned up last night.”

“Didja see the game? Niff referee, jack. Niff. But yuh, they cleaned up. You a fan?”

“Nah, Sox for me,” Yuuri replied with a small grin, fingering the strap of his carryall with a gloved hand and watching Dave weigh the celery.

“Heard they’re gonna trade DeSoto. Must be outa their minds. That whacks.”

“Sure does. Say – have you got any gingerroot? I think I’m about out.”

“Yuh. Anything else?” Dave asked, deftly slipping Yuuri’s purchases into brown paper bags.

“I think that’s enough for now, thanks.”

“Nor’easter comin’ in tonight, they’re sayin’,” he added as he handed the bags over. Yuuri stuffed them into his carryall. “Yuh might not be leavin’ home for a while. Bad one, they say.”

“No suh,” Yuuri answered automatically, with an obligatory tinge of surprise.

“Yah huh.”

“In that case, I’d better pick up a few more things.”

He paid for his purchases in cash – Dave, like most of the stallholders, wasn’t chipped, so Yuuri kept a stash of it for that purpose – and pushed through the crowd back outside. A paper sun was emerging from behind the skyscrapers in a matt-blue sky. No clouds yet, but the air bit. The last snow dump had melted to amorphous gray shapes huddling in shadowed corners. This one, if Dave was right and it did come, would paint a deceptively pristine veneer for a while at least.

_I ought to ask Donatella and Jia if they’ve prepared those slides yet._

Small white two-person driverless taxis made up the bulk of the morning’s traffic, their occupants staring ahead unseeing as they accessed their chips. As Yuuri walked by red-brick buildings and gray skyscrapers with shimmering glass doors, the odd luxury hovercraft buzzed overhead, making a beeline across the sky just above any obstacle rising to give it challenge. Joggers trotted past, and Yuuri wondered about fitting his own in tonight, with the storm coming. The river glittered as it flowed under the salt-and-pepper-shaker towers along the bridge. Yuuri kept his eyes fixed ahead as he crossed, ignoring the rumble of the T train as it snaked straight over the middle, scuffed and sluggish with age.

_…glial localization of glutamine synthetase…_

The McLaurin Building’s Great Dome gleamed in the sunlight. Yuuri veered to the right of it and meandered around the campus buildings to Number 46, a geometric white stone and glass edifice that had perhaps once excited a late-twentieth-century architect who thought it was the cutting edge of what a futuristic building ought to look like. And it had admittedly once excited a fourteen-year-old Yuuri who had crossed the threshold to prise out its secrets, ten years ago.

Nowadays he couldn’t help but get the feeling that it was more like a child’s Lego experiment. A wild genius child who thought it was wicked swit to make as many shapes as they could out of ninety-degree angles, and scatter some buttercup-colored bricks around inside where things got a little boring. Most of the windows came in one size, too; but that was what you got from a box of Lego, after all.

In addition to this, the twenty-seven-meter-high atrium had the effect of a great European cathedral or an Egyptian colossus. Namely, that upon entering, you felt like an ant skittering through the lofty, clinically indifferent channels of a place that had more important things to think about than you. You were incidental; an annoyance, if you were worthy of even that much attention.  

But like the T station, it was just there in the background, daily. Yuuri’s feet took him through plain white corridors, past labs and lecture halls, to an inconspicuous door with burnished silver nameplates that said “Dr. Yuuri Katsuki, Associate Professor of Neuroscience” and “Phichit Chulanont, Technical Engineer.” The sensor outside flashed red and beeped upon recognition, and the Friday oozed a greeting as he walked in and dropped his carryall next to his desk.

He took off his long woolen gray coat, hat and gloves and brown scarf and placed them on a shelf in the cabinet in the corner, far enough away from the stacks of electronics that the threads did not catch. There were only two desks in the room, which was not much bigger than a walk-in closet, though at least it had its own window. Yuuri’s desk was bare, as most of his work was stored somewhere on the Cloud or one of his tablets; while Phichit, being a kind of technical handyman on the campus, usually had more metal and electronic paraphernalia than he could store in any one place, which meant it frequently spilled onto most other available surfaces. He did, however, do his best not to encroach upon the half-meter or so of counter where the tea- and coffee-making equipment resided, with a tiny sink, a little reheat oven next to it, and a small fridge underneath.

“Friday, light the window. And what’s the ambient temp in here?” Yuuri said, sitting down in his black leather chair.

“Dr. Katsuki, when will you call me Samantha?” it said in its low, sleek purr. The glass of the window, which had been tinted coal-gray, suddenly became transparent. Yuuri blinked in the sunlight, then rootled in a desk drawer for his holo-pen.

There was only one persona programmed for the Friday in the neuroscience department. It was absurd – this was MIT, for Christ’s sake, it wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford to have more – and petitions regularly went around trying to get it changed to something…blander. But the men (and a few women) who liked the Friday telling them it had arranged a seminar at two forty-five p.m., or they needed to remember to pick up cannoli on the way home that night, in a voice that made it sound like she wanted them to do something obscene, still outnumbered everyone else.

“Just – what’s the temperature? It’s cold.”

“Two hundred and ninety-three degrees Kelvin. Twenty degrees Celsius. Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, Dr. Katsuki.”

“Feels colder than that,” he muttered, mentally flicking on a rainbow-colored hologram of neurons firing in the brain, the delicate thin strands weaving together like notes in a symphony. “Maybe there’s a draft in here.”

“This room is sealed and secure, Doctor…Is there anything else you need me to do for you?” she added suggestively.

_Get a personality change?_ Yuuri thought irritably. “No,” he said, putting his pen down and rising to go to the counter. A hot cup of tea would warm him up. It was also, as he knew from experience, a good choice on days like today when he was fighting off food cravings. What he _wanted_ was sugar, fat, salt and bread in some indecent combination. A tender flaky croissant filled with praline, fresh from the oven. Or warm baklava, oozing honey and smothered in cream. What he _needed_ , however, was none of those things.

The “kettle” was a stainless steel jug into which Yuuri inserted one of Phichit’s latest inventions, a rod that instantly heated to a few hundred degrees and boiled liquid in seconds. It could probably double as a lethal weapon, but it was handy, and maybe a potential patent beckoned. He tossed a rosehip teabag in a mug, poured hot water over it, and settled back at his desk, then pulled his hand-held biochem monitor out of his carryall and mentally turned it on. The device, a small white scanner with a screen on top, had begun life as an ordinary store-bought biometer that would provide information such as blood pressure, height, weight, current state of hydration or intoxication, and with what. Yuuri had hacked it years back to show him a lot more. The little screen flickered to life. He silently visualized the specifics of the information he wanted and looked at the readout.

Just as he thought – he wasn’t actually hungry, and there was no reason why he should be, having had leftover chicken stir-fry for breakfast. Blood insulin and glucose levels within acceptable parameters. Serotonin low. That was what tended to happen to him this time of year, in the cold and dark. His body tried to make up for it the only way it knew how – by giving him cravings for foods that would temporarily boost levels to normal. Finding some way to reprogram this process would, he occasionally mused, be a good – and helpful – topic for a future study; though he feared it would require more knowledge of physiology and biochemistry than he possessed.

He deposited the monitor in a desk drawer, dropped the teabag in the compost bin, sipped, and eyed the Christmas tree on the counter in the far corner of the room. That was Phichit’s, too. The twenty-year-old was from Thailand, and his family were Buddhists; but all the time Yuuri had known him, he’d loved the brutal Boston winters and euphoric whirl of lights, presents, drinks and parties that was Christmas. Sometimes Yuuri still asked himself how the two of them had roomed together for those couple of years when their personalities were so different. Maybe it was why they shared an office now. It seemed impossible for Phichit to be upset about anything for long, and Yuuri had to admit that his friend encouraged him to do things he might otherwise be reticent about. Well, that wasn’t always a good thing, he corrected himself, picking his pen back up and beginning to poke and tease at the brain hovering over his desk.

He didn’t _need_ to use the pen, of course. Like any actions through the brain-computer interface facilitated by the chip implanted in the temporal lobe, all he had to do was think at his field of vision. But it felt more natural – more _real_ , somehow – to lift an instrument and physically poke at something…well, something that didn’t physically exist, being a hologram generated in the office.

Still, he knew that he would struggle to fully concentrate on anything until he got his 10 a.m. lecture out of the way. Nutritional Neuroscience, with a dozen grad students, was one of his specialisms, as well as a condition of his continuing work here. None of his students had ever actually done anything to provoke anxiety or embarrassment in him; not that he could recall, at least. What bothered him was just the idea, he supposed, of being vulnerable in public in front of people; which was one reason why, after all the fanfare when he arrived to attend the most prestigious school of neuroscience in the world at such a young age, he knew he wasn’t living up to his promise, and had gradually faded to an afterthought in the scientific community, and then not even that. Lectures, seminars, presentations and conferences, and “networking,” were all requirements of his job, but the dread he had come to associate with them ensured that he kept an extremely low profile.

Well, he could be content as an associate professor in his little office. And it wasn’t as if his work had been _criticised_ by anybody. It was good. He knew that much at least.

_One hundred trillion connections,_ he thought, probing with the pen until a hairline strand of bright green adhered to the point; he pulled it out and enlarged it to analyze it. _What are the chances I’m going to find the ones I’m looking for?_

The office door clicked open. “Hey,” Yuuri muttered without looking up, mentally requesting the departmental Cloud to formulate the chemical signals emanating from the firing synapses he’d selected.

Phichit shrugged his coat off and stuffed it in the cabinet along with Yuuri’s, dislodging some electronics which fell to the floor and he promptly collected, shoving them back in place. “Hey, Yuuri. What’s doin’?” he asked as he opened his tool kit and took out a small precision laser, then proceeded to grab pieces of metal off the shelves and arrange them on his desk.

“C10H12N2O.” Yuuri gave his pen a gentle flick, like an angler casting his line, and the green hair undulated. “Apparently I don’t have enough of it this morning, but this brain does.”

“As long as none of you jacks over here are planning on copying Frankenstein any time soon.” Phichit cleared a space on the counter that ran along the wall and nimbly hauled himself up to sit on top of it, shining the laser onto a silver-colored plate. He was reminiscent of a cat burglar, Yuuri thought, in his form-fitting black T-shirt and pants, as he drew the tool carefully across the metal. Apart from the stylishly embroidered red and gold Chinese dragon over a breast pocket, that was. Unlike himself, in his gray cotton pants and white button-down shirt, the uniform of the working male since time immemorial.

“Heard that one a million times,” he mumbled, guiding the green hair back in place and searching the kaleidoscope of colors for another one to fish out. After a silence, he thought to add, “Looks like we’re supposed to get a lot of snow tonight.”

“No suh.” Unlike Yuuri, Phichit said it like he meant it. As if the eight-year-old inside of him was ready to go sledding down a hill, given the chance. His bright voice rang in the office, while Yuuri’s soft one tended to insulate itself in the walls.

“Yah huh,” Yuuri huffed, still intent on the hologram. He’d drawn out a magenta-colored thread this time. “Look, how many times do we have to do this Abbott and Costello act? Neither of us is originally from here, and we’re sounding like a couple of chowdaheads.”

Phichit giggled. “I like how they talk here. And you’ve been here what, ten years? I think you’ve picked up just a little of the twang.”

“No way.”

“Yah huh. More that than Japanese, anyway.”

“Phichit,” Yuuri said, tucking the magenta hair into the hologram and catching a blue one, “I haven’t been to Japan since I was five.”

“Hmmm, there’s the _slightest_ hint of Japanese there too, though, I think. You’ve always spoken it with your family, haven’t you?”

“On the rare occasions we do speak.”

“You’d say I had an accent?”

“Yeah, MIT Thai.”

“Proud of it.”

The corners of Yuuri’s mouth turned up. “So you should be. You’re brilliant.”

“Anyway, who are Abbott and Costello?”

“Who’s on first?” Yuuri said while he mentally told the Cloud to analyze the brainwaves of the regions he was examining. Not that it would be able to give more than a general idea; analyses were still only averages of many neurons firing at once.

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

They worked in silence for a while. Then Phichit got up and swapped components. “What’s eating at you these days, anyway, Yuuri?” he said, perching back on the counter. “I know you’ve been here a while, but it’s still exciting, don’t you think? I mean, we came to find the answer to life, the universe and everything.”

“Forty-two.” Yuuri gave the response automatically, pulling a tablet out of a drawer and thinking the brainwave patterns he’d observed into an electronic notebook. It would be just as easy to save his data on the Cloud, of course, which had almost limitless storage; but everyone who wanted to ensure their data remained private stored it on a separate device. Yuuri didn’t know any scientists for whom that was not the case.

Now it was Phichit’s turn to sigh. “You sound like you’re twenty-four going on forty-seven.”

Yuuri shifted his focus entirely now, putting his pen down and looking straight at him. “Of course I’m excited to be here. I always have been. I guess I just don’t know where I’m _going_.”

“But you’re presenting that paper at Stanford in a few weeks – the one you told me about, where you were allowed to do your own research for the first time, yeah? That’s wicked swit, if you ask me.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“And didn’t you say _Victor’s_ going to be there? That this could be your chance to finally meet him?”

Yuuri silently cursed the bright pink that suddenly flooded and warmed his cheeks. He glanced up at the framed picture of Dr. Victor Nikiforov on the wall next to his desk, accepting an award from Columbia University in New York, where he worked. It was the _only_ picture on his wall, apart from one of Freddie Mercury in concert next to it, also framed.

Victor Nikiforov…the world-famous Russian scientist at the cutting edge of transcranial magnetic stimulation, neurological aetiologies of psychosis, brain plasticity, and so many other things that it hardly seemed possible for one human being. Like Yuuri, he had started unusually young and rocketed through his qualifications. Unlike Yuuri, he had exceeded expectations, and by age 28 had made a splash on the world stage with his sterling work, ingenuity and charm. He was tall, slim, muscular, with more than a touch of the fey about him in his fine angular features and glacial blue eyes – the sort of blue Yuuri liked to think burned deceptively hot inside, like a high frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum.

“That just makes it worse,” he said, snapping back to himself. “Bad enough if I mess up in front of a bunch of Nobel laureates. But with him there on top of it…”

“Oh, Yuuri.” Phichit shook his head and smiled sadly. “If there’s a downside to something, you’ll always find it. I thought you really wanted to meet him.”

_We’re dropping this subject now,_ Yuuri decided, picking his pen back up and wondering where to prod it next. “Friday, how much time have I got before I have to leave for my class?”

“One hour and thirty-nine minutes, Dr. Katsuki.”

Phichit put his work down and fixed Yuuri with a look he knew well. Yuuri could almost fill in the words for him. _Say, Yuuri, I know this great thing we can do. Come and do this thing with me, it’s the best thing ever, and it’ll pull you out of your shell and you’ll love it, I promise._ He readied himself to say no.

“Say, Yuuri, I thought it’d be fun to go to Club Nero tonight. Aroon said he’d come too. Why don’t you come with us?”

Aroon was Phichit’s latest fling. He never seemed to be very serious about who he dated, but this one had lasted longer than most. Yuuri opened his mouth to respond.

“And before you say no – how long’s it been since you went on a date?”

“Um…I don’t know. It depends on what you count as a date, I guess. You know I’m not – ”

“You know what?” He pointed his laser at Yuuri as he spoke – turned off first, thankfully. “ _I_ think there’s a sexy, fun-loving troublemaker inside this innocent-looking scientist. I’ve known you for several years, haven’t I? So let’s find a way to let him out.”

“The chemistry of love, Phichit. Just increase levels of endorphins, dopamine…”

“Have you given up trying, then, or what?”

Yuuri put his pen down on his desk and folded his arms across his chest. This wasn’t a conversation he would have preferred to be having right now, but so be it. “Phichit, I, um…never told you about what happened last time we went to a bar together.”

“I remember you were upset about something,” Phichit said more gently, “but I think you said you didn’t want to talk about it. So I didn’t ask.”

“It was embarrassing. It still is.”

“Believe me,” Phichit laughed, “you’re not the only person in the world who’s ever been embarrassed in a bar. What happened?”

The memory was still lodged inside, where it burned. Yuuri picked up his pen and fidgeted as he spoke. “You remember that jack, Dominic, who asked me to go sit with him?”

Phichit thought for a moment. “I don’t remember much about him, but yeah, you went off with him.” His expression was one of concern now. “And?”

“Okay, well, he was into kissing in a big way.”

“And, uh, that’s bad?”

“Yeah…it was bad. No one had ever tried to kiss me like that. Not that…not that I’d had much experience anyway, but…” He shook his head and laughed mirthlessly, trying to find the humour in it, but he’d already plunged himself back into that moment, remembering his thoughts at the time all too clearly. _I’m going to be normal – walk into a bar, pick someone up, have a nice time. I can do that, can’t I?_ And later, with Dominic, _What’s wrong with me? This is what normal people do together, isn’t it? Why am I not enjoying it?_

“Was he like an octopus or something?” Phichit prompted him.

“Well…more like an MD trying to examine my tonsils with his tongue.”

“Ew. So you told him to spatch off, right?”

Yuuri stared at the rainbow brain over his desk, silently naming some of the regions until he felt calmer. “Um, no. He asked me to go into the alley out back with him, and…”

Phichit raised his eyebrows. “No way, Yuuri.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri said quietly, “I went.” He shrugged. “I figured it’d be an experience if nothing else. Something, well…you know I don’t have much of.”

“Yuuri, you don’t do…whatever it was you did…just for experience, like you’re playing a VR game and need it to get to the next level. I mean, it’s supposed to be fun.”

“And how many people have been knocking my door down asking to have some fun with me?” Yuuri felt a tear prick at his eye and blinked.

“I’ve heard students here say some really nice things about you.”

“I wouldn’t date a student. It isn’t appropriate.” Phichit was silent. “Anyway, I may as well tell you what happened, since I started.” He took a breath and continued. “I ended up giving him a blowjob, or my idea of one – well it worked, anyway. Then he zipped up, said ‘Thanks, beautiful,’ and left.”

“Well at least he gave you a compliment…”

“He was being sarcastic, Phichit.”

“Was he?”

“I felt like…like a used condom. Or what I imagine one would feel like. If it were sentient.”

“I don’t know what to say, Yuuri. I’m sorry that happened. But it doesn’t mean – ”

Yuuri shook his head, then leaned forward and fished in the brain with his pen again. “I’m going to sit here and work out the ratio of striatial fluorodopa uptake as an index of increased dopa decarboxylase activity and greater presynaptic DA turnover in the striatum – OK? So…you go tonight and have fun.”

When Phichit didn’t answer, Yuuri mused for a moment, and concluded out loud, “…or is it 45? Shit. Math was never my strong point.”


	2. Chapter 2

Nutritional Neuroscience came and went without a hitch, as it usually did, though the butterflies always returned to Yuuri’s stomach before the next session. The rest of the day passed with meetings, research, time in the lab with grad students and coaching PhD candidates, reading journals, more poking at the holographic brain. There never seemed to be enough time left to finalize his preparations for his presentation at the Stanford conference – and if preparing himself to face a small group of receptive students a few times a week for a simple class was unnerving, it was nothing compared to this. It was supposed to be an honor, not a torture session, he knew; but then, whatever internal circuitry he ran on never quite seemed to work the way it should.

By the time he emerged from the T station near where he lived, the storm had arrived, and the skin exposed between his hat and scarf was alternately tickled with fat wet snowflakes and frozen by icy fingers searching through the protective folds of material. His black oxfords weren’t ideal for the conditions, and he slipped occasionally as he quietly crunched his way down the sidewalk. Each streetlight he passed seemed to magnify the swirling particles. There was barely another soul around as he trudged up the short flight of stairs to the nineteenth-century wood aqua-painted house and paused to let the sensor identify him before entering the hallway. He knocked clinging white clumps off his shoes onto the worn mat and climbed the stairs; his apartment was one of two on the top floor.

“Friday, I want twenty-one degrees Celsius,” he said as he went inside and entered the kitchenette, where he pulled the items he’d bought from the market that morning out of his carryall and began sorting them.

“Roger that, Dr. Katsuki,” the mild-mannered male voice answered.

He removed his winter things, hung them on a peg near the door, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and checked the news on his chip as he returned to the kitchenette. Well, there was never much point in checking _serious_ news from that source; it was all filtered and censored. But the weather report was innocuous enough at least. It was supposed to keep snowing overnight. A storm like this would probably dump so much that it would form a permanent layer for months, on top of which more layers would accumulate over the winter, like the rings of a tree trunk. Ironically, the first place Yuuri’s family had lived upon entering the United States – when California had still _been_ part of the U.S., that was – had been Stanford, as his father had gotten a job there. Every place they’d lived since then had been pigging cold in the winter. He’d never gotten used to it, and wondered if it was ever that cold in Japan where he’d been born.

“Make it drier in here too, Friday, will you?” he added as he threw the ingredients together for a quick vegetable and paneer curry.

“Roger that, Dr. Katsuki.”

“Play me some Queen while I cook. You choose.”

He sang along, ate, washed the dishes, then removed himself to the gray overstuffed couch in the living area and placed a tablet and his biochem monitor on the coffee table. The room made him think of cloth that had been washed so many times that you’d never guess how vividly dyed it had once been. It wasn’t because the décor was old; more that the owner seemed to think that the neutrality would be inoffensive to whoever wanted to rent the place. It was relaxing enough anyway, Yuuri supposed, though he’d never had the chance to stamp his own personality on it, and wasn’t sure what would emerge if he tried.

“Friday, tell me when it’s nine p.m.,” he said as he sat back and brought up the _Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience_ on his chip.

He paused briefly to wonder whether he should have gone out with Phichit and Aroon, just so he wouldn’t feel like such a plank for spending his night like this instead. But he’d meant what he said, and the unsettling memory of Dominic and his eel-like tongue was enough to convince him he’d made the right decision. That and the fact that if the snow got bad enough, public transport might shut down early, and good luck getting home.

As if to emphasize the point, Phichit called over his chip shortly afterward. He sounded like he’d been getting nicely lanced; his words were a little slurred, his eyes bright. He sent Yuuri some selfies taken with his hovering aircam, which he kept in a pocket wherever he went; there were plenty of young men crushed around him on the dance floor, though Aroon did not appear to be among them.

“There’s some julicious bos here, Yuuri,” Phichit enthused. Yuuri struggled to make his words out against the stabbing electronic pop music. “Sure you don’t wanna get down here?”

“I’m busy, Phichit. Where’s Aroon?”

“Um, around here somewhere. You don’t know what you’re missing. OK, look, I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

The noise and images clicked off, and Yuuri was left with the howls of the wind through the eaves outside. He picked up a tablet on which he’d stored the research notes of one of his grad students for checking. “Friday, put on some white noise to drown out the wind out there,” he said.

“Certainly, Dr. Katsuki. ‘Cherry Blossom Spring in Karatsu’?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“My pleasure.”

 _I ought to get around to reprogramming you to be less obsequious,_ he thought with a stab of irritation. Subservient Fridays that spoke as if they would commit computer hara-kiri without a moment’s hesitation, just for your pleasure if you asked, were very popular. It took a lot of work to try to remove every trace of that from a persona, and Yuuri knew he hadn’t succeeded yet. Though his landlady would probably kill him if she discovered he’d been tampering with it.

“Dr. Katsuki, you asked me to tell you when it was nine p.m.”

Had so much time passed already? He turned his tablet off and put it down on the coffee table, which he shoved against the sofa. “OK, Friday…holographic dance program number nine.” He gave his back and arms a stretch. It didn’t seem worth the bother to change clothes for this, a little wind-down from the day, and something to make up for not being able to go out on a jog during the storm.

The neutral palette was suddenly drenched in flickering primary colors, and the room became a dance floor with three-dimensional people freeze-framed in the middle of executing their moves. Yuuri realized he hadn’t told the Friday what kind of music he wanted.

“Um…I dunno, play something with a rock rhythm, I guess. Queen, Equus, Landslide, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, Pretorian Shift, that kind of thing.” _Like what they’d never play in a million years at Club Nero,_ Yuuri added silently, relishing the feel of being completely in control of his own clubbing experience. “And I’ll have partner situation number one.”

That was the only one he used; he would be dancing among the other holographic people when the man he’d programmed especially for the purpose would join him, dance with him, be attracted to him. You could get as sexual as you wanted with holograms – it wasn’t possible to touch them, of course – though less was more, in Yuuri’s opinion, and he figured he had a good enough imagination anyway.

He enjoyed varying the way the holographic man looked from one session to another; though on a practical note, Yuuri always made him a good dancer, so that he could copy and learn and get a decent workout. “Give my partner curly blond hair,” he told the Friday. _Wait a minute – Victor’s got blond hair._ He had a tendency to unconsciously give the man physical traits that Dr. Nikiforov possessed; and doing this kind of thing with a real person’s image felt…wrong. “No, make that black, very black hair. Thick and curly.” He also gave the not-Victor-lookalike a red silk tang-style tunic and tight silk black pants, plus a sonorous low voice. No, actually…a bit breathier. He didn’t want someone who sounded too domineering.

When the program launched, Yuuri felt safely immersed inside his ideal club, and worked up a sweat dancing to his favorite songs before his partner politely appeared and asked if he wanted to join him. They made a good couple, considering they couldn’t touch. It was always disconcerting just how believable the progression was in the projection from polite interest to simmering desire. Yuuri lost himself in the scenario and returned the look with hooded eyes, dancing close and swaying his hips. When the Friday told him the time he’d programmed for the scene was almost up, he whispered softly in the man’s ear, “Come back to my place.” His partner hissed out a breath and nodded – and then the projection was gone, the white light in the ceiling spilling sedately over the furniture.

Yuuri had no idea if his pickup lines were actually any good – too overt, forward, corny, or embarrassing. The hologram always reacted positively, which was why Yuuri was able to say them. He padded to his bedroom, got undressed, ran the shower, and gave the encounter with the not-Victor-lookalike a perfect ending under the warm cascade. As he emerged in a cloud of steam, toweling himself off and stopping back in the living room to fetch his biochem monitor, it occurred to him that he’d neglected to give his partner a name. Talk about wham, bam, thank you mister.

It also occurred to him that it didn’t matter anyway, as none of it was real.

He pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and slipped under the sheets, telling the Friday to dim the lights. Then he picked up the biochem monitor and mentally asked it for the information he wanted. Physical health good. Melatonin secretion disrupted – that fit with feeling fatigued but not very tired; served him right for exercising late at night. Testosterone levels up. He gave a little “hmph” – you’d hope so. Endorphin levels raised compared to earlier, but still low. Yuuri sighed and shook his head. Aside from dancing and jacking off, he wasn’t sure what else he could do to remedy that. _Chocolate_ , his body whispered in the Samantha-Friday’s voice. _Spatch off,_ he told it.

He lay in the dim room for some time, listening to the wind outside. He thought about the Stanford conference, but that sent a jolt of adrenaline through him, pushing the horizon of sleep even further into the distance. Musing about what to focus his next study on wasn’t relaxing either. It felt these days like no matter what he did, it didn’t bring him closer to what he actually wanted to know.

He wondered what he would do tomorrow if, as seemed likely, the city would be shut down. Going to work was better than being here.

“Friday,” he said, and his quiet voice seemed to ring through the empty room, “talk to me about something.”

He’d read somewhere that the inventor of the home/building computer personality had named it “the Friday” after the indispensable personal assistant in _Robinson Crusoe_. He’d thought he was being witty, Yuuri supposed. Maybe he ought to give the one in his apartment a name, at least. But why pretend to humanize something that wasn’t?

“Certainly, Dr. Katsuki. The Red Sox are trading José DeSoto for – ”

“No,” Yuuri jumped in, and then sighed, turning onto his side and brushing his fingers over his forehead.

“You still need to buy Christmas presents for – ”

“God, no.” His hand shot out to emphasize the point, though he knew it was silly when he was talking to a computer, and he let it drop back onto the mattress.

There was a pause, and Yuuri was about to mentally turn his chip off when he heard, “Tell me why you sound sad.”

Yuuri breathed. Squeezed his eyelids shut tight. Buried his face partially in his pillow. “No.”

Another pause. “Maybe you could suggest a topic yourself, Dr. Katsuki?”

Yuuri could have told it to call him by his first name, but he didn’t. The thing simply didn’t have a…a presence. And Yuuri’s name had been worn out over the years by people who had spoken it in a tone that made it sound the opposite of what it meant: courage, bravery, heroism.

He snorted to himself quietly. He used to think…hope…he’d grow into that name. He hadn’t, yet.

“Dr. Katsuki? Do you still want to talk?”

Yuuri lay quietly for a moment. Then he whispered, “No.”

He switched his chip off and eventually went to sleep.

***

Yuuri ate leftover curry for breakfast, gazing out of the kitchenette window at the glaciated road that had shown black tarmac the day before, and listening to the news on his chip calling it “snowmageddon” across New England. That was the national news; the local news just said they’d had “some weather.” It had been enough to shut public transport down, at any rate; and as people weren’t allowed to drive personal cars in the city without a special license, most everybody was going to be spending the day at home unless they wanted to take a walk in the snow. Yuuri wouldn’t have minded; but blazing a trail through it before it was plowed, all the way to the campus, didn’t appeal.

He cooked some batches of food to freeze for handy meals in the week: beef stew, roasted butternut squash soup. “Why do you do all that when you could just buy your meals or have them delivered like almost everybody else?” Phichit had once asked him. “Doesn’t it take a lot of time?” Yuuri was tired of trying to explain it to people and just said that it was a hobby – and how many hobbies rewarded you with something you could eat? Though the truth was that food was a big part of his life, for better or worse, and always had been; and he needed to be in control of what he put in his body.

He kept his biochem monitor handy, more as a reassurance than because he was worried anything was wrong. It recorded a small caffeine spike when he allowed himself to have a cup of black tea. Told him he’d gained 0.04 kilograms since this time yesterday. And his thyroid was slightly underactive, but that always happened at this time of year. He wondered if he could afford a vacation to someplace sunny – then remembered the conference in Stanford and watched his adrenaline shoot up again.

For much of the rest of the day, he rehearsed his presentation. Made sure he knew his facts and figures backwards and forwards, because no doubt he’d be interrogated about every aspect of the work he’d done. It had already been peer reviewed, and was about to be published, and he told himself over and over there was nothing wrong with it. But the black morass that lurked deep inside of him was never interested in common sense.

He watched _Singin’ in the Rain_ on an old-fashioned 2D screen, as it was originally meant to be viewed, joining in with some of the dance steps between checks on the Moroccan lamb casserole that was simmering on the hob. Took a call from a colleague who had trudged to the campus that afternoon and was working in one of the labs – did he know where an NTE-2A thermal probe could be found there? Played some chess with the Friday, visualizing the board and the positions of the pieces from last time in his own mind, rather than via the chip, to keep himself on his toes. But that always got frustrating before long; the Friday played like the computer it was, with no panache or surprises. After he’d eaten, washed the dishes, and put the leftover casserole away, Phichit rang and told him he’d managed to get home with Aroon the night before, and they’d spent a fun day together. Yuuri told him he was glad.

“You ought to get yourself a pet to keep you company,” Phichit said.

“With all the time I spend out of the apartment, it’d be cruel. They don’t let you take dogs around with you at MIT.”

“Why does it have to be a dog? You could get some fish.”

Yuuri laughed. “Fish?”

“Fish don’t need supervision.”

“Cleaning the tank, pulling them out of the water when they’re dead? No thanks.”

“Suit yourself. I just think it might help.”

“I don’t need help, Phichit.”

Later he took a walk outside, the dark of night and the drifts of snow weaving around each other and the aged buildings, with their flights of stairs and fire escapes, like an M.C. Escher fantasy. He stood underneath the blue-white glow of a silent street lamp on a bridge over a creek, the cold gray stone sucking at his body heat as he leaned over to listen to the trickle of the water below.

_[…what…]_

Oh. It had been a while since that had happened. But it was inevitable, Yuuri supposed. He hadn’t been keeping up with his evening sessions; and when he didn’t open himself to them, they somehow started finding him. It tended to happen most often at this time of day, when he was naturally more relaxed.

_[…help…]_

That was what he’d be doing when he got back to his apartment, then.

_[It’s OK. I’m here.]_

_The doctor is in and he’ll be with you shortly,_ he thought wryly, turning back with a quick step. 

***

_[It’s OK. No need to be afraid.]_

Yuuri continued the periodic reassurances, though it was difficult while he was walking and entering his apartment, and literally not in the right state of mind. His brain needed to be operating at the alpha/theta borderline frequency of 7.5Hz for optimal connection, and that meant deep relaxation. He quickly shrugged off his outer garments and hung them up, then grabbed the biochem monitor. Right now he was into beta at 16Hz. It would be handy to have a gadget that actually helped entrain your brainwaves to the frequency you needed, rather than just telling you what they were, he mused briefly. He turned off his chip so he wouldn’t be disturbed, took a series of deep, steadying breaths with his eyes closed, then lay down comfortably on the sofa. It was always the sofa he used for this, rather than his bed, so he was less tempted to fall asleep.

_[Where are you?]_

Ouch, that was on the strong side. They were frightened. Yuuri ignored it for now and mentally went through the techniques he used to reach the alpha/theta borderline; he’d be more help to whoever it was once he was there.

Of course, it wasn’t words that were being spoken, by himself or by them. Those were a crude representation of what was taking place. The majority of it was emotions. No one _told_ Yuuri they were afraid; they sent him the feeling. Occasionally there were images, though they were often intangible, as if viewed through fog or a dream, faded with soft edges. When they became more confident and controlled in what they were doing, they were better able to send knowledge, like Yuuri did. The presence had not used words to say “Where are you,” but all the feeling was there behind it – the wondering, the fear, and the thought itself; or, more specifically, the comprehension that took place in the brain _after_ words were spoken.  

Yuuri felt himself sinking deeper. If he opened his eyes and reached for the biochem monitor now, it would pull him out of his trance. But he knew when he was in the right place, his mental eye focused inward. He opened himself to a silent quest for presences in the gray void. The opening was always conditional, however. Yuuri never shared the most private aspects of himself with any of these presences. He’d learned how to protect those; and when he worked with someone for a while, he showed them how to do it so they could maintain that boundary too.

It felt like this person was completely new, though – to him; to the whole experience.

 _[Hello?]_ he called; though instead of the word, his consciousness was sending out the desire to connect with whoever was nearby.

 _[What’s happening?]_ Disoriented; scared; confused.

_[Has this happened to you before?]_

_[No.]_

_[It’s OK. You’ve been opened somehow. You don’t need to be afraid.]_ It had taken many sessions before Yuuri had been anything like adept at sending thoughts and feelings that were precise and detailed enough to be easily understood, but it came quickly to him now. He was used to the typically short, jagged thoughts of the others, expelled into the void like a window breaking. Often they seemed to fear that the window was what had been their sanity. He could empathize.

_[Are you real?]_

_[Yes. I want to help you.]_ Warmth; hands clasped in mutual support.

_[How? What can be done?]_

He’d come across so many new presences this way over the years that he’d established a routine which seemed to work well with most, though it was still time-consuming and draining. The fear and panic needed to be calmed, if they were to be in any condition to do further work – or, Yuuri suspected, to be able to continue to cope in ordinary reality. Then he would guide what he thought of as getting to know each other; though basic information that was easily available in the physical world, like name, age, gender, nationality and so on, couldn’t seem to be passed on. As with words, it wasn’t a method of communication that existed in that ethereal sphere of consciousness. What happened went _beyond_. Yuuri found himself getting a feel for the “flavor” of the personality of a presence – who they actually were in essence. Sometimes he even thought of the individuals with nicknames he’d made up himself, based on what their characteristics reminded him of. There had been Bubbles, Echo, Spike, Red, and many others. He wondered what they, in turn, saw in him…and what this one might become. Sometimes they never made contact more than once.

 _[You’re not the only one this has happened to]_ , Yuuri continued. _[There’s me. And others.]_ He imagined himself walking hand in hand with the presence through a sunny park on a spring day, the trees laden with blossom, a gentle breeze. He didn’t know how much of the image actually came across, but he knew the feelings would. And he could sense the presence growing calmer.

He stayed with them, radiating love and acceptance as best he could, until they faded. Probably something had brought their brainwaves to a high enough frequency that they were no longer concentrating. That was fine; it had been a long session, and Yuuri was tired. Occasionally there was more than one presence wanting to communicate with him, though luckily that didn’t seem to be the case tonight.

He brought himself out of the trance by degrees and sat up slowly, readjusting to the world of solid objects around him. He’d been tempted to try to convey to this presence that what they were doing could be fun, even useful – but it would have been a lie, at least from his own understanding. Was meeting with these people – he was pretty sure they _were_ other people; he felt that much, at least – fun? Was it useful? Sometimes it was preferable to communication in the ordinary world, Yuuri had decided. Your own thoughts, and the person you were deep down, shone through. It was easier to trust someone who you knew couldn’t help being honest. But…what other uses this ESP, for lack of a better term, had, he didn’t know. He didn’t see things that went on to happen in the future. He didn’t have psychokinesis, the power to move objects with thought alone. And words could be very useful for communication; without them, he wasn’t even sure you could call what he was doing telepathy. Maybe it would be different if he could try it with someone who was physically present with him, but he’d never knowingly met anyone with a similar ability; though of course it was not the kind of thing that tended to enter casual conversation.

Sometimes it felt special to connect with people in such a unique way. At other times it frankly felt like nothing more than a pain in the ass. Something he’d been stuck with through no desire of his own. And there was no getting rid of it.

Not that he’d ever…met, if that was the right word, a presence who seemed fundamentally unlikeable. But the world wasn’t ready for this kind of thing to be happening to people. It was misunderstood. Misdiagnosed. The real fear came not from the ability itself, but from what you thought might be happening, and how everyone around you reacted to it.

Yuuri remembered it well. He wished he didn’t.

He’d only been seven when, with no obvious catalyst for onset of the experiences, he felt himself being swallowed up by the fog. Or getting the sensation that he was endlessly falling. Sometimes he would feel, but not see or hear, presences around him. Emotions he was certain were not his own coursed through him. Sometimes the presences were as panicked as he was, and it was as if they were all scrabbling helplessly at the bottom of a pit, struggling in vain to haul themselves back up to the light. On rare occasions, he felt as if he was with a kind grandfatherly type of person who was full of knowledge and love. In time he was able to tune himself in more to presences like this; and later still, he felt strong enough to turn around and hold a hand out to the ones who were still groping blindly below.

In the ordinary world, his friends and family had thought he’d lost his mind. Even now he couldn’t recall the details of the endless parade of psychiatrists and medical doctors who had examined him, drugged him, even threatened to lock him away. He’d known that unless he gained some mastery over whatever was happening to him, there would cease to _be_ an ordinary world for him, unless it was one where he spent his days inside the barren confines of a psychiatric ward.

So when he finally decided there was nothing to fear from the ESP – that it would neither destroy him nor drag him under, if he didn’t let it – he pretended the problem had suddenly disappeared, and that he was “normal” again. And to his bewilderment and relief, no one spoke of it after that. The episode had become a skeleton in the family closet. It was just as well, because they had enough problems as it was, without that added to them.

And so he had turned to neuroscience in the hope that it would enable him to make sense of it all. How…and _why_. He happened to be intelligent enough to have been able to start at a young age.

But if searching for the answers was like choosing doorways down a long hallway to look behind, he’d begun to wonder if he’d been opening the right ones. Or if he’d even chosen the correct hallway in the first place. Because chemical formulae and brainwave patterns and parts of the brain that lit up during certain operations didn’t explain any of it. They couldn’t even come close.

Nothing explained, either, why sometimes a presence Yuuri was communicating with suddenly, inexplicably, was cut off in terror, shortly after visualizing a long black snake wrapped around an egg. It was rare for him to pick up on such an overt image from anyone; and the fact that it had happened several times, all in similar circumstances, _and_ he never heard from those presences again, was…disturbing.

He’d looked it up on the Cloud. It was some esoteric symbol from ancient times called an Orphic egg, but he couldn’t see what relevance it had. Then again, the ESP world was dreamlike, and dreams were usually anything but straightforward to interpret.

Yuuri hoped a puzzle piece would fall into place at some point, and he would understand. But he wasn’t looking forward to more panicked disappearances before that happened.

He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and was having a long drink of water before turning in, when the next one came.

_[...what’s happening to me?...]_

Yuuri rested a hand on either side of the basin, allowing his head to droop down, and sighed. If it was a presence he was already familiar with, he would have found some way to let them know he needed sleep and would make himself available tomorrow. But this was another new one – disoriented and frightened, as they all inevitably were.

He straightened up and closed his eyes, taking a moment to collect himself. _[It’s OK…I’m here. There’s no need to be afraid…]_


	3. Chapter 3

Yuuri hadn’t brought his biochem monitor to the conference center because he knew the readings would be off the chart, and he didn’t want to make things worse for himself.

These types of rooms seemed to be the same the world over. Geometric, neutral, casually indifferent. This one felt overheated too, though Yuuri couldn’t be sure on that point, because the sweat that had sprung out of his pores could equally be due to his nerves. He was glad he’d thought to put his gray jacket on over his shirt, since he was sure he’d otherwise soon be displaying underarm stains to some of the most renown neuroscientists in the world.

Well, one of them wasn’t here at the moment. Yuuri had spotted Victor on a chair at the far end of the front row the instant he himself had walked in to take a vacant seat on the near side of it; all of the presenting scientists were obliged to line up this way like ducks at a shooting gallery. But the tall blond-haired man had risen about ten minutes ago to disappear out the double doors and hadn’t returned. Yuuri wondered if he was going to. Half of him would be eternally relieved if he missed what could potentially be an embarrassing debacle; the other half was disappointed that he wouldn’t be present to hear about Yuuri’s research.

It would be Yuuri’s turn at the podium in front of the giant Cloud-synched screen in a few minutes; the current speaker was completing a question-and-answer session. He gripped the sides of his chair and mentally reviewed what he’d planned to say when he began. Next to him, Dr. Arban Bayar, his senior colleague from MIT who was presenting after him, gave him a silent thumbs-up.

Before he knew it, he was being announced. “And next we have Dr. Yuuri Katsuki, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, the lead author of ‘Reduced numbers of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta and ventral tegmental area in subjects with an _n_ -3 polyunsaturated fatty acid-deficient diet,’ due to be published next month in the _Journal of Neuroscience_. Congratulations as well, Dr. Katsuki, on your first article as lead author.”

Yuuri stood and walked toward the podium to polite applause, feeling like he’d left his stomach behind in his chair.

***

It went well…up to a point.

The point being where a dark-haired woman in the audience insistently raised her hand in the middle of his presentation, and then spoke over him until he felt forced to pause and listen. It was a breach of etiquette on her part, but she clearly was unconcerned by this, or by the dozens of surprised faces that had now turned towards her.

“Dr. Wislawa Bacewicz, University of Oxford,” she enunciated in a cut-glass Polish-inflected British accent. “While you were discussing your results, I couldn’t help but notice that there appear to be two calculation errors from the raw data to the percentages of tyrosine hydroxylase-positive cells – unless the error is in the data itself? The first figure expresses that the number of cells was 33.9% lower than in those who ate the control diet, but the correct calculation would appear to be 31.47%. The second figure – ”

“Dr. Bacewicz,” Yuuri interrupted her, “um, thank you for pointing out the errors. Until I’ve had a chance to look more closely at them myself, I can’t comment on them. But if you’d care to see me at the end of the presentation – ”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I merely wanted to elucidate that the data here appears to be less than reliable. You said this paper _had_ been through peer review?”

_They don’t check every single calculation and you know that._ Yuuri felt sweat bead on his forehead, and he clutched at the sides of the podium. He didn’t know this woman. Didn’t recall ever having seen her. Though jealousy and backstabbing could occur among scientists in any field of study, and Yuuri had occasionally come across people who resented the fact that he had a doctorate degree by an age at which they were still undergrads. But why that was enviable, he wasn’t sure. What was a few years early on when they had their lives ahead of them?

He paused for a moment, feeling every pair of eyes in the room now trained expectantly on him.

_Fuck._

***

Yuuri leaned against the side of the stall and gasped for breath. Swallowed and folded his arms across his chest, counting to ten. Twenty. Gave up and sobbed quietly. At least the conference center was mostly empty today, which meant he could stand here in the men’s room and fall to pieces by himself.

Once the Oxford woman had finally shut up, Yuuri tried to force himself to forget she’d said a word, and carried on. Only, he’d lost his place in the presentation and had to take a very awkward pause to mentally regroup. Then he found himself wondering what the point was, because his credibility was in shreds, every unit of data from his study now in question. Because he was _shit at math_ , and the frazzing terps who were _paid by the journal_ to peer-review their published articles hadn’t double-checked.

That was when his chip had malfunctioned, on top of it all – and _that_ had meant an end to the visual displays on the screen behind him, as well as all the Cloud prompts for what he’d planned to say. He’d winged it to the end as best he could, not daring to meet the eyes of anyone in the audience, which would no doubt reflect terrible judgment on what they were witnessing: the meltdown of a once-promising young scientist who couldn’t cope in the big leagues.

He continued to sob, resting his head against the cold metal of the wall.

The announcer had said at the end that the Q and A session would be canceled, considering the technical problems in the presentation, for which Yuuri had been eternally grateful. He’d exited the conference room with the last vestiges of grace that he could pretend to possess, then dashed to the nearest bathroom, where he’d brought up everything he’d eaten that day. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in here. He never wanted to emerge.

The chip problem wasn’t new to him. It was extremely unusual for everyone else, but for some reason he was prone to it. Several times in the past, when he’d been feeling overwhelmingly emotional – which usually meant having an anxiety attack – the same thing had happened. He’d been told the last time he’d had the chip replaced that such a thing was a technological impossibility, and he’d said to the jack that he’d been pleased to introduce him to a new experience. Phichit couldn’t understand it either. Well, he’d have to go out and find a tech shop somewhere in Stanford if he actually wanted to function in this place and get home. That was going to be difficult, considering how he was trembling and tears were still streaming down his no-doubt blotchy cheeks. He couldn’t bear to face anyone who’d witnessed what had happened in that room.

“Yuuri?” came the tentative voice of Dr. Bayar along with the creak of the door to the men’s room opening. “Are you in here?”

He sniffled but didn’t reply.

“I…brought your carryall. You left it in the conference room.”

“Oh…um…” He took several ragged breaths but said no more, and didn’t move.

“Look, I know you’re upset about your presentation. But Bacewicz was way out of line. I heard some people telling her so after you’d gone. Hell, I told her so myself, for what it’s worth. She has a reputation for trying to tear people down. I guess she must think it’s the only way she’ll ever attract much attention to herself. She may be from Oxford, but her work is nothing special. In my humble opinion, of course.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but huff a small laugh.

“Shall I leave your carryall here?”

Yuuri opened the door to the stall and walked over to the row of sinks, where the scientist stood.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Dr. Bayar said.

“Thanks,” Yuuri managed to get out, grabbing a handful of paper towels and blowing his nose and wiping his face. “I, uh…I don’t think I’ve done the university too proud today.”

“It’s not your fault. And it wasn’t as bad as you seem to think. They were small errors; no one is perfect. You did well to finish, too, after…what happened exactly, do you know? Is there a problem with your chip?”

Yuuri turned on a cold faucet and splashed water over his face. “It blew. Or something. I’m going to have to go get it replaced. Then I’m going home and hibernating. Maybe I’ll come out sometime in 2056.”

“I hate to have to tell you, but first we must go to the banquet. At least put in an appearance. It’s a condition upon which we were sent, if you didn’t know.”

Yuuri stared at himself in the mirror and flinched at the wreck he saw reflected there. “I didn’t even know there _was_ a banquet. There’s no way I could eat anything right now. Or go out there in front of everyone else.” _I could even run into Victor_ , he thought. _Dear god no. Not like this._

Dr. Bayar’s low coaxing voice continued, “I know how you must feel. But if you have hopes of the university sending you on trips in the future, you have to abide by their rules. If you want a few minutes to tidy up, I can wait for you outside.”

Yuuri gave in with trepidation, wondering just how much worse this day could become. Was he about to be mobbed by angry scientists demanding who he thought he was, wasting their time with flawed research? They’d probably been combing through his paper to find all the errors they could since the presentations had ended, just to shove them in his face.

_Stop it. You really are being paranoid now._

He gave his face a final splash, dried it, then slung the strap of his carryall over his shoulder and, with a deep breath, exited the room.

***

The banquet hall was as bland and uninviting as the conference room. Long white linen-draped tables offered hot plates full of gleaming silver trays. Yuuri deconstructed the mingled aromas and detected garlic, gingerroot, onions, roasted meat, and probably but less certainly cilantro, rosemary and thyme. Normally it would be enough to make his mouth water. Right now he just wanted to find the bathroom again, and hide.

“Yuuri,” Dr. Bayar said next to him, “this banquet is meant for…schmoozing, I guess you could say. I was hoping to talk to some potential sponsors for my next research project. If you don’t mind, would you – ”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Yuuri said quickly. “I don’t want to spoil your evening. You…you do that.”

He looked at Yuuri with concern. “You’ll be OK?”

“I’ll be OK.”

Dr. Bayar patted his shoulder and moved off. Yuuri stood fingering the strap of his carryall, the unwelcome frantic thought of being ambushed by Dr. Bacewicz threatening to trigger another anxiety attack. Men and women in suits, all of them older than him from the look of it, were standing in clusters, holding flutes of champagne and chatting pleasantly. And here he was, alone, wondering who might spot him and make a beeline to ask him god knew what.

His eyes alit on the table full of champagne. It was a good spread; enough to grease the social gears of everyone at the conference for much of the evening. And there was no shortage of black-and-white-clad wait staff on hand to replenish things, from the look of it.

He didn’t drink often. It didn’t agree with him, and it was full of empty calories.

But a little champagne wouldn’t hurt in a situation like this, surely.

 Just a little. Two or three glasses.

Or six. Or ten.

He couldn’t remember how many it was, but he had a mother of a hangover the next day as he roamed the streets of Stanford searching for a shop that would replace his chip.

***

Though the Friday woke him up at the usual time, Yuuri pulled the covers over his head and lay still.

“Dr. Katsuki, you should get out of bed or you’ll be late for work,” the Friday said mildly.

“Fuck off,” Yuuri muttered, turning over and burying his face in the pillow.

He’d already noted the leaden light filtering weakly through the window of his bedroom. The sky had been a flat impenetrable gray for days, harmonizing dismally with the steel and concrete and aging heaps of sludge-choked snow in the city. Yuuri had begun to feel like his body had imbibed the heaviness, which had seeped into his bones, dulled his vision, made movement an effort. The day would demand a lot from him. He didn’t know how to begin to give it. The enormity of the task weighed and pressed and smothered. He began to weep silently, a fly caught immobile in a web of demands, waiting for whatever lurked in the middle to hunt him down and devour him.

“I can’t do this, I can’t.” His words were muffled into the pillow.

“Do you want me to contact HR and tell them you’re sick?”

_Shut up, you annoying, annoying machine._ “No.”

“Then – ”   

_“Shut the fuck up.”_ An tremor shivered through Yuuri as he pulled himself to a sitting position. God, this was only a computer. What if it had been a real person he’d just spoken to like that? What was happening to him? “Just…don’t talk to me anymore this morning,” he added more quietly, his voice choking off.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been rude to the Friday. It seemed permissible somehow; an outlet, sometimes, for darker, angrier feelings he wouldn’t dream of expressing to a person. The problem was, it still seemed like he _was_ talking to a person, and one that was always sweetly polite back to him. He wondered if a real human being would be as capable of making him feel so ashamed.

Yes. Yes, they would.

His thoughts wandered back to his disaster of a presentation almost three months ago and the days following. Dr. Bayar had had to fetch him from the men’s room _again_ after the banquet and haul him back to the hotel – so he’d said in a kindly way Yuuri was certain he hadn’t deserved – because he’d been sick and too drunk to remember anything after the seventh or eighth glass of champagne. He hadn’t been fired from his job; and he figured if he’d done anything too spectacularly awful or embarrassing, word would have gotten back to him somehow. He’d simply ended up feeling glad that the whole experience was behind him.

Only, it wasn’t. Because while the banquet was thankfully a big blank, the presentation was seared into his memory. He should’ve drunk all those glasses of champagne before he even got to the podium, he reckoned. The only saving grace was that Victor hadn’t been in the room to personally witness what had happened. He’d been due to present his own paper as the last speaker, and by that time Yuuri had sequestered himself inside a stall.

There had been no criticism directed his way afterward. Yuuri had contacted the journal immediately and informed them of the errors, which they had said were “trivial,” but were able to correct before publication. He had not thanked Dr. Bacewicz for her…well, he could hardly call it help. So his paper was out there, the trip to Stanford in the past. There was a new fully functioning chip in his head. He’d been assisting colleagues and students while wondering what to research next himself. Going through the usual motions.

But all those eyes in the conference room, on him like that…he’d had recurring nightmares about it since then. To him they’d looked hungry…predatory. The sudden distraction of one of them sinking her claws into another had no doubt been an entertaining break in the monotony.

Every time he thought this, he reminded himself that he was wrong. That Dr. Bayar and others had stood up for him. That people, on the whole, tried to be good and decent, and did not set out to deliberately tear others down. Maybe a few of them did; but from his own experience, that was rare. It was a dark, unreasoning part of him that was so afraid, perhaps born of his early terrifying opening to his ESP, and perhaps of other things too. But like the evening shadows in the setting of the sun, it had grown and deepened over the past few months, until it felt to Yuuri like it had sunk a tendril into every vital part of him and was sucking the essence away. There was little joy left in anything; and tasks he’d once performed with hardly a thought had become chores that never ended, a great boulder that he would roll up a hill only to watch it come careering back down at him, ad infinitum.  

He knew he was no innocent victim of fate, either, because he’d done things to make the situation worse.

It was hard to know what else he _could_ have done, as distraught as he was after the conference, when he’d returned to Boston. He’d been convinced that he’d never be invited to another conference again; or if he was, that the mere thought of attending would bring on another anxiety attack. And how could he be a professional in his field if he couldn’t even do such ordinary things? As it was, it was difficult for him to stand in front of students to teach, even though he’d only been given one class. The university had been wanting for some time to give him a second one. And “schmoozing,” as Dr. Bayar had called it, for financial backing? It was essential if you wanted to conduct research.

So what he did was to tell himself what a worthless human being he was – even though he’d been proud of the progress he’d made over the years in getting away from such a poisonous mindset – and then hit his favorite foodie places in town. He’d returned to his apartment with a “party” box of Sophie’s handmade Belgian chocolates and a bag of pastries from an artisan bakery. Buttery twists oozing still-warm chocolate. Portuguese custard tarts. A donut filled with caramel cream. He ate it all in the space of an afternoon while watching _It’s a Wonderful Life_ on his 2D screen and wishing that like George Bailey, he’d have an epiphany and realize that he’d been surrounded all along by people who loved and supported him, if only he’d opened his eyes. He would have preferred to watch a Gene Kelly film instead and try to learn some of the dance steps, but all the food he’d consumed made it unwise.

Some fighting spirit inside of him decided it was not going to give in to the abuse he was regularly attempting to inflict on his body. He used his willpower. Distraction techniques. And often he really was too busy to think about eating things he shouldn’t, anyway. He continued to jog and dance. But there would be quiet moments in his office, and many more in his apartment, when it seemed like the only comfort to be had was in something sweet and creamy. He knew it was psychological and physiological. That the more he did it, the more he’d feel compelled to do it again. He’d been through it all before, and knew where it led. But that didn’t help. And when his waistband started getting tight, a white-hot despairing panic shot through him, and he had sobbed for the damage his presentation had done to the tower of his self-esteem, which he was now exacerbating by pulling it down around himself in fistfuls.

Through sheer determination, he’d kept his head above water for several weeks now, and put extra miles into his jogging, and his clothes weren’t as tight anymore. But the temptations hadn’t lessened. This morning, running late as he hastily got dressed and grabbed his carryall, he figured it would be so easy to enter one of the bakeries he passed on his way to the T station and buy something hot, soft, sweet and buttery. He hadn’t had time for breakfast. Instead, he hurried into a branch of Mei Wei and got a small bag of eggrolls and a spicy pork kebab, which was not ideal but would do the job and stop the cravings from getting worse.

When he opened the door to his office, nibbling on the last piece of eggroll, he thought for a moment he was gazing at the innards of a giant machine. There were hunks and plates of metal and glass scattered on both desks and across the floor, amid lights blinking just about every color of the rainbow. Cardboard boxes full of more components. Toolboxes disgorging instruments of varying sizes, many of which Yuuri had never seen before. A steady _beep, beep_ like a heartbeat. It took him a moment to locate Phichit in the midst of everything, dressed in his habitual dark clothes, with a circular piece of something black in one hand and a laser solderer in the other. He seemed to be looking for something.

“Christ, Phichit, what’s going on in here?” Yuuri asked as he picked his way across the floor, hanging his olive-green fleece jacket over the back of his chair.

“I know, I know, I’m really sorry,” Phichit answered distractedly. “I just needed a place to work. I promise I’ll clean it all up.”

“Don’t they have someplace in the engineering department where you can do this?”

“Uh, well, not really. They said since I’m based here, I should work here. There’s a lot going on over there right now, and we’re kinda short on room.” He shuffled slowly across the floor, looking down. There was a crunch under one foot. “Oh crap.”

Yuuri sat down in his chair and reflexively took his biochem monitor out of his carryall. It told him nothing surprising. Brain emitting beta waves at 30Hz. He needed to try to relax. That was easier said than done in here at the moment.

Wait…

Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The electronics…brainwaves…

Victor and Phichit were tech wizards; that was well known. But…Yuuri reckoned he wasn’t too bad at it himself, even if his level of skill didn’t equal theirs. Maybe…

“Yuuri, there were a couple of students in here looking for you about ten minutes ago. They said – ”

“Sh-sh-sh.” Yuuri waved an arm impatiently while he called up Victor’s groundbreaking paper that explained how to precisely target areas of the brain with magnetism, using a gadget of his own invention that diagnosed abnormal areas of activity and sent out an attuned signal to balance them, which helped to alleviate psychotic symptoms. He sat back in his chair with the smooth blank face of someone concentrating intensely on their Cloud display. Phichit smiled and shook his head, then knelt down on the floor and began shifting things to the pile on his desk. Clanks and thuds now punctuated the beeping noises.

Yes…the specs were all there. A patent was pending, but you could also make your own if you wanted to.

Yuuri wanted to. With some modifications.

***

_Oh, this is good. Happy days._

Yuuri had lain down on the sofa in his living room after having hooked the new device around his right ear. It was a plain smooth black oval whose major axis was several centimeters in length, with the earpiece attached and some biofoam to cushion it against the head. Victor’s invention had been designed in the shape of a pen, but that was meant for someone to use like a laser knife or scalpel, while this continually emitted a self-adjusting signal at whatever frequency was necessary to entrain brainwaves. It had taken Yuuri a couple of weeks to make the changes to Victor’s specs and then build it, with some help from Phichit – who had known about Yuuri’s ESP for some time though not in detail, and wasn’t sure what to make of it, but tended to treat the subject as no big deal, for which Yuuri was thankful. The device wasn’t powerful enough to take someone in a beta state to a theta state, for example, but it certainly cut down on the time and effort it could take to relax. Turning it on with his chip somehow felt to Yuuri like standing under a soothing shower, or warm honey on his tongue.

He hadn’t yet tried to use it for an ESP session, but now was as good a time as any, he supposed.

Before he could form another thought, a presence greeted him.

_[Hi!!!]_

It was Bubbles. They hadn’t been around for a while.

_[I’m glad you’re back! Good to be with you!]_ he sent.

They simply enjoyed each other’s presence, exchanging warmth and gladness and even love of a kind. Yuuri felt like he was floating in the middle of something light and frothy. It gave him a desire to laugh like he was five years old. This was usually what happened with this person, which was why he thought of them with the nickname he did.

Flecks of sunlight glinting on a lake. The beacon of a distant star. Sprinting with boundless energy along the powder-fine white sands of a beach on a turquoise sea. Yuuri didn’t know if Bubbles was thinking these things themselves or if it was his brain translating the feelings he was receiving into something more tangible, but it didn’t matter; he allowed them to come and go without impediment, drinking in the healing elixir of their light and warmth.

He should’ve done this weeks ago, he thought. It might have helped him pull out of that dark place where he’d been stuck. But then, Bubbles might not have been around, or any of the other presences he’d had a history of working with. They seemed to be able to find him, whereas he couldn’t remember ever having “called” for anyone specific and succeeded in connecting with them. Well, who knew how this worked. Most people didn’t even believe it was real.

And, real or not, the presences weren’t physically part of his world. That was the problem with this.

_[Heavy.]_

_[Yeah…I wasn’t feeling good,]_ Yuuri sent. _[You’ve cheered me up.]_

_[I’m glad to repay you for everything you’ve done.]_

Pink waves rippled through his heart. He experienced them without thought.

_[I wish I knew more people as sweet as you,]_ Bubbles sent.

Yuuri wanted to laugh again. _[I feel the same.]_

They drifted.

Yuuri heard in his mind a few bars of “Killer Queen” and couldn’t understand where _that_ had come from all of a sudden.

Bubbles sent him a giggle. _[You’re confused, but it was in your own head.]_

_[Really? It’s a song I like.]_ He realized now – it was one of several the Friday had played for him while he’d cooked his dinner, and it had been tucked in the background of his mind ever since, though he hadn’t noticed it until now.

_[I’ve never heard it, but it’s pretty. I’ll try to find out what it is.]_

Yuuri knew he couldn’t send the words of the title to her. But if you hummed a tune into the Cloud or to your Friday, they could usually recognize it, unless you were a spectacularly bad singer.

_Oh god, I’m sending Queen songs to people via ESP,_ he thought in amusement.

His head was suddenly filled with a completely different tune that was unfamiliar to him; something Bubbles had obviously sent. It lilted like a child running up the ladder to a slide and whizzing down and then doing it all again. He tried to memorize it so he could get it identified later himself.

Their connection continued in this way, until Yuuri decided it was time to send a goodbye. It felt like Bubbles wanted to connect again sometime, and he let them know he’d like that too. Then he turned off the device on his ear and brought himself out of his trance, back to the solid reality of the living room.

He still couldn’t decide if the ESP was a blessing, or a curse, or both. Or what use it really was. But he felt lighter, like he’d spent a pleasant evening talking with a friend. That was worth something, surely.

And his device – he couldn’t properly call it his invention, since at the core it was Victor’s – seemed to be an unqualified success.

***

“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” That was the song Bubbles had sent him. He leaned back into his office chair and closed his eyes, humming it again. Yuuri knew almost nothing about classical music, but that was because he’d never been taught anything at school or played an instrument. It seemed to suit Bubbles’s personality. He wondered, not for the first time, and not just about that particular presence, who it was. Man or woman? How old? And why that song? Were they a musician?

And what did it say about him that he was sending rock songs that had been written decades before he’d been born? He laughed under his breath, and was about to turn on the hologram of the brain when Phichit burst into the room. At least he could do it now without any danger of destroying electronic components underfoot.

“Yuuri – that video you made, it’s all over the Cloud.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What are you talking about? How did you know I’d made a video?”

“You’ve got a chip _implanted_ in your _brain_ and you don’t think to check it?”

“Not constantly, no,” he said. “Where should I look? What’s going on?”

“It’s trending on several different streams. There’s the neuroscience one you say you use. There’s one for new inventions. One for engineering. One for – ”

Yuuri shook his head. “What the hell. I mean, all I did was just put a tablet in front of myself here at my desk and talk about this thing.” He unsnapped a small pocket in his carryall and pulled out the brainwave-entraining device, which he placed in his palm and extended out for Phichit to pick up. “You helped me make it, remember.”

Phichit turned it around in his fingers, then gave it back. “I know, but…did you think about applying for a patent, like I said?”

“Well, no. If you’d watched the video, after I explained what it did, I said that since I didn’t have time to develop it for other uses, maybe someone else would be interested in doing that. Scientists do it all the time – make their research publicly available for people to use, adapt, improve on. After all, this was based on something Victor invented. I made sure I explained that too, so credit could go where it was due.”

“I bet Victor patented it, didn’t he?”

“Patent pending.”

“Yuuri, do you realize how popular this could be? People are stressed. They’re always looking for easy ways to relax. This is a non-drug-related thing they could use for just that purpose. _I’d_ use it. Can I try it?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Sure. Just give it back when you’re done. Unless you want to make one yourself. I can send you the specs.” He handed it back over.

“People really seem to like it. You could have made a lot of money off it, I bet. Maybe you could still.”

“I…guess I didn’t really think about that. I was using it for something else – ”

“I know. The ESP stuff. But you still have to put food on the table. This could have you in champagne and caviar.”

“I don’t want any of that. In fact, I don’t want to drink champagne ever again.”

Phichit shook his head and sat on the edge of his desk, looking at Yuuri like he couldn’t quite believe he was real. “OK, have it your way. At least this project seems to have made you happier. After you got back from Stanford, I…well, I wasn’t sure what to say, if I’m honest with you. I was hoping I could get you to go out with me – even to a sandwich bar for lunch or something – but you didn’t want to.”

“I’m sorry, Phichit. It was…um, well I got really dragged down by everything for a while.” Yuuri folded his arms and smiled. “Victor inspired me, I guess you could say. I bet we’d be on the same wavelength if we ever collaborated.” He called over to the photo on his wall, “You hear that, Dr. Nikiforov? I’m going to share the stage with you one day, both of us wowing everybody with the swit stuff we’ve done. You’ll know who I am, and you’ll say, ‘That Dr. Katsuki, he’s the flinkest scientist I’ve ever met.’ ”

“You know, maybe that’s not as skewed as you seem to think. I can see that happening.”

Yuuri sighed and turned the brain hologram on, then took his pen out of its desk drawer. “Yeah, sure,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Killer Queen”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZBtPf7FOoM) by Queen
> 
> [“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh_sckAUkgE) by David Qualey – my favorite rendition of the early 18th-century Bach song.


	4. Chapter 4

“Morning,” Yuuri said as he entered the lab and saw that the two grad students he’d come to meet were already there, programming equipment for scanning their research subject, who was due to arrive that afternoon. He removed his jacket and swapped it for a long white coat. He supposed the change of clothing wasn’t really necessary anymore, the messy work of taking and analyzing physical samples having been superseded by increasingly precise and detailed digital scans; but it was like taking on a persona. You worked in the lab, you wore a lab coat. The two young women, one with long red hair and one with short brown, wore them as well. They were giving him odd smiles.

Yuuri raised an eyebrow at them as he went past and prepared to settle in at one of the work stations.

“Do you want to tell him, or should I?”

“Tell him, then.” They both giggled.

Yuuri felt a small dart of irritation. “Tell me what? I thought we were going to talk about what kinds of scans you wanted to do today. When I looked at the methodology you both wrote up – ”

“Dr. Katsuki,” the red-headed one, Marcia, announced, “there was a shway bo looking for you about twenty minutes ago. He came in here, asked where he could find you – ”

“ – and we told him where your office was,” the brown-haired one, Gabrielle, finished for her.

He stood back up uncertainly. “A shway bo,” he echoed.

“A good-looking – ” Marcia interpreted.

“Yeah, I know. A good-looking jack. Man. So apart from noticing his striking appearance, did you ask him what he wanted?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t say.”

“He was really polite. He had this…” They glanced at each other and laughed. “…this _peak_ designer suit, like he’d walked off the cover of a magazine. And I think I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I’m not sure where. Like he’s famous or something.”

“Uh…I’d better find out who he is and what he wants. You both – ”

“It’s OK, Doctor; we’ll just carry on until you get back,” Marcia said with a wink.

“Thanks,” Yuuri said distractedly, sweeping out of the room.

This was unlikely to be good news, Yuuri thought, feeling his blood pressure rise as he hurried down the maze of corridors that led to his office, his lab coat streaming out behind him. He hadn’t scheduled appointments today with anyone other than students, and this didn’t sound like any student he knew. It was more likely to be a visitor from the government. But he couldn’t have been doing anything they’d want to complain about, surely? He began to mentally run through the research projects he’d discussed recently with colleagues and students, wondering anxiously if there were any clues to be found in those as to what someone might have found threatening or objectionable. Sometimes there was simply no knowing.

When he stopped outside his office door, it opened in front of him and Phichit emerged, holding the door ajar behind him. “You have a visitor, Yuuri,” he said, his expression unreadable. “I let him in for you. You’d, ah…” His mouth twitched as if he were trying to hide a smile. “You’d better see what he wants.”

“Phichit, who _is_ it? What’s with everyone today? Did he say anything to you?”

“Just…go talk to him.” The corners of his lips quirked up as he let go of the door, which snicked shut, and then he disappeared down the hallway.

“Jesus,” Yuuri mumbled. His stomach did an uncomfortable flip, not relishing the prospect of an unpleasant surprise. Though Phichit hadn’t seemed bothered…so maybe it wasn’t anything to worry about after all. He stepped forward, the sensor noted his presence, and the door snicked open again. He pulled it all the way toward him and stepped inside.

“Hel – ” he began, and then the tentative greeting died in his throat.

The man standing two meters away from him, in front of his desk, turned to face him with a glittering smile.

Dr. Victor Nikiforov.

Yuuri stared. He knew it was rude. He was incapable, however, of doing anything else. He’d lost the use of his arms, and possibly his legs, though somehow he was still standing. His heart stopped beating. His jaw hung open, frozen in place.

_Come on, come on, he’s waiting for you to say something._

“D-Doctor Nikiforov…why are you here?” he said in a small voice, feeling behind him for the wall. It was still there. He pressed a palm against it for reassurance.

“Yuuuuuri,” he said, extending a hand – did he expect him to shake it? – “starting today, I’m your research partner.” His voice was smooth and lightly accented.

Yuuri ignored his hand and slapped his other palm on the wall so that both were braced against it. His mind refused to comprehend.

Wait…oh. “Did Phichit put you up to this?” he said in a rush.

Confusion crossed Victor’s face as he dropped his hand to his side. He looked just like he did in his photo – _Oh holy shit, the photo of him on the wall there behind him, did he see that?_ – only a couple of years older. His blond hair, almost white, cut short in the back and long on top so that it flopped stylishly over his left eye and nose, was as fine and fair as dandelion fluff, flowing just a little rakishly in otherwise well-behaved layers. The cascade over his eye, of a crystalline blue somehow even more luminous than the photo on the wall suggested, was crying out to be lifted up and away and stroked. And his students were right about the suit: charcoal-gray with a matching coat and tie, clearly tailor-made to hug and drape in all the right places.

Yuuri forced himself to start breathing again and waited for an answer.

“Phichit? The fellow who let me in? Put me up to what?”

“Did…did he…I mean, we were just talking about, the other day…” _Please, god, kill me now._ “He didn’t ask you to do this, did he? He didn’t ask you to come here?”

There was a pause. Then, “No…”

“Oh…OK. Um, it’s just that…well, this is a surprise, is all…”

What he really wanted to say was, _Is this some kind of prank? Are you in on a joke to make me regret the day I ever set eyes on you? Someone found out about…about what I think of you, and they decided to have a big laugh, didn’t they?_

But he knew Phichit would never do such a thing; knew it in his heart without having to question it, just like the presences in his ESP sessions told him things without words and he understood. And…looking at Victor now, into those big mesmerizing eyes, and the continuing confusion in his features, Yuuri decided that Victor would not do such a thing either. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why he’d come here and said what he had, but it wasn’t to skewer him where he was vulnerable. His face was too…kind for that, his gaze too honest. Though the smile had a mask-like quality to it, as if it didn’t quite jibe with the feelings underneath.

Whatever Victor’s expectations were, Yuuri got the feeling he was starting to disappoint, though Victor was trying not to give it away.

_How am I supposed to play by your rules when not only haven’t you given them to me, but no one told me I was going to walk straight into the game?_

He took some more breaths, pried his hands from the wall, and let them fall to his sides. “Research partner?” he heard himself say, mouse-like.

A ripple of relief appeared to travel through Victor as he said brightly, “Yes – if you’ve got the time? We both seem to have presented papers on similar topics at Stanford, and I know how well-regarded your work has been over the years. I meant to watch your presentation, by the way, but unfortunately I’d been asked to give some interviews, and I had to leave.”

 _And I’m very, very glad you did. You must have heard about what happened._ “I – I haven’t been too busy lately, I guess…”

“Well that’s not entirely true, from what I’ve seen. I can’t tell you how flattering it was to discover what you’d done with the TMS harmonizer I designed. Frankly, it was ingenious. Do you have the device here?”

“Phichit has it,” Yuuri said almost inaudibly. He cleared his throat and repeated it.

“Maybe later, then.”

 _I’m disappointing you again, aren’t I? What am I supposed to do and say? I don’t get it._ “I, um…” _For Christ’s sake, just be honest with him. Why try to be anything else?_ “Dr. Nikiforov – ”

“Victor. Please.”

“V-Victor…I’d be delighted to collaborate with you on a project.” _There. Capable of polysyllabic words. Keep going._ “But aren’t you based in New York?”

Was he imagining it, or did Victor’s smile look a little more genuine now? He nodded. “I was. And I’ll still be doing some work there. But I’m going to be based mostly at Harvard over the next year. Since that’s only a few kilometers from here, I thought it’d be a good opportunity for us to…as you say, collaborate. Do you have any ideas about what you’d like to study?”

Yuuri let out a nervous laugh. “I’d need some time to think about it, and then I guess we’d better discuss it.”

Victor looked at him quietly for a moment, then stepped forward until he was standing directly in front of him. Yuuri gasped in shock as he felt the light touch of long fingers lifting his hand, a thumb swiping across his knuckles, as Victor said, “What’s this place like? Have you lived here long? This is the first time I’ve been here.”

Before he realized what he was doing, Yuuri yanked his hand away and skittered to the other side of his desk, where he stood and stared again. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I’ve been here ten years. I guess that’s a long time.”

There was the expression of confusion again. “Is something wrong?”

Yuuri swallowed. “No.”

“Then, um…” He appeared to be at a loss for words. “Well, I need to spend the rest of the day moving into my new office, and there are people I have to meet with…but would you be interested in showing me around the area, say on Sunday?”

“Oh. Uh – ”

“But if it’s not convenient…”

“Yes, it is. Convenient. That’s fine. I – I’d like that.”

After another silence, Victor said, “Great.”

“But don’t let me keep you just now. You’ve obviously got other places to go.”

“I do?”

“Well, I thought…I mean, your suit. You’re, um…you look like you’re dressed for something important.”

Victor raised a hand and stared at his cuff like he’d never seen it before. “Yes…right. Well, how’s ten a.m. for you?”

Yuuri gave him a blank look.

“Sunday? On the green just outside this building? We could maybe meet there, and – ”

“Yeah, sure. That’s great. I’ll see you then.”

_Honestly, god, I meant it. Kill me now._

***

The first thing Yuuri did when he returned to his office for lunch was remove the pictures of Victor and Freddie from the wall and shove them in a desk drawer, though he was sure the damage had already been done. How long had Victor been in here waiting? He must have spotted them.

After Victor had gone, Yuuri had meandered back to the lab to help Marcia and Gabrielle, though “help” was a subjective term. It had taken him a quarter of an hour to realize that he’d been discussing the wrong area of the brain with them, thinking they were going to scan the cerebellum when it was the hypothalamus; and then he’d advised them to check for healthy brainwaves at a frequency that had never been physically detected in humans before.

“Maybe we should scan _you_ instead,” Marcia had laughed. “You seem…distracted, Dr. Katsuki.”

“Bit of a conflict of interest there, I think,” he’d said, giving himself a mental shakedown. “I’m sorry; just not focusing today. Let’s do this, OK?”

They seemed to want to ask him more, but thought better of it and got to work. Yuuri’s door was always open to his students, and they knew that; but he wasn’t one of those professors who wanted them to call him by his first name, and he didn’t visit bars with them as their chum. He was doubly glad of it now, because the last thing he wanted to do was be grilled by them about the “shway bo” who had come to visit.

He collapsed into his chair and pulled his hastily thrown-together lunch out of his carryall – a small container of mixed nuts, a hunk of cheddar cheese, a handful of raw vegetables. He didn’t feel hungry, but crunching on a carrot stick seemed to drain something from the muddling electric cloud that was buzzing through him, and he was able to put more coherent thoughts together. For a moment he considered pulling out the biochem monitor, just out of curiosity, but then he decided he didn’t want to find out what it said. He knew well enough that he had come unglued.

 _He called me Yuuri from the start, like he already knew me._ Well, maybe Russians were just more informal about things like that.

 _He said he knew how well-regarded my work had been over the years._ Really? This, coming from someone who was always in the spotlight with some new discovery or innovation? By comparison, Yuuri had spent his own life lurking in the shadows. And it was Victor’s spotlight he had gazed at for years, not in envy, but in admiration and awe. Whenever he researched the literature in a topic related to his field, there was Victor’s name. It always seemed to come up. He appeared to have a particular interest the neurology of psychosis, as well…and that had been what Yuuri and everyone around him had been convinced his own diagnosis was, for a while. Victor wanted to help people with problems like that. And he did. He was a hero.

 _And now he wants to collaborate…with_ me _? Why?_

Surely it couldn’t just be because of the adaptations he’d made to Victor’s – what did he call it? – TMS harmonizer? Surely that in itself wasn’t enough to draw him here to offer his time and expertise to some dime-a-dozen scientist he’d never met before, who had screwed up the very first paper he’d been the lead author on? Surely not.

On top of that, Yuuri had agreed to show him around Boston.

_Jesus. I’d be just as good at escorting the president. Or Freddie, if he was still alive._

In fact he thought he’d be _better_ at escorting Freddie Mercury, because Yuuri knew far more about him than Victor-the-real-person. The fact hit Yuuri like a hammer blow. All those years of following his career, and…it felt lewd to think about it now, but lusting after him, too…and Yuuri was not, in reality, at all acquainted with the man who had been standing here in his office. They were complete strangers. And once Victor got to know him, it was entirely possible – probable, even – that he’d end up wishing they’d stayed that way.

Yuuri put the rest of his lunch away, uneaten, his appetite having promptly vanished.

_Why, Victor? Why me? Why now?_

He’d had no time to come to terms with the hopeless tangle of thoughts and feelings lodged inside of him. But one thing he did know was that aside from the confusion and frustration, the fanboy who lived inside of him was in ecstasy. He was somersaulting and cartwheeling and screaming like a teenager at a Bonnie Beasties concert. But that wasn’t any more helpful to him, either, in his struggle to claw back some degree of composure.

He was halfway to convincing himself he’d hallucinated the whole thing somehow – he had to stop buying crap food for breakfast from Mei Wei the mornings when he was late for work; there must be a hundred e-numbers in it – when Phichit entered the office, took one look at him, gave him a knowing smile, and perched on the corner of his desk in undisguised anticipation.

“Oh god, Phichit…” Yuuri began, aware of what was coming.

“So?” When Yuuri didn’t reply, he continued, “Victor, eh? Did you know he was coming here? To see you? What was that all about? I’ve been dying to find out all morning.”

“You mean he didn’t say anything to you when he was in here?”

“Just that he was hoping to talk to you. He didn’t say why.”

“Oh.”

“He, um…he liked the pictures you had on the wall.”

Yuuri let out a quick breath. “Shit.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his feet under the desk.

“Though he didn’t know who the singer was, so I told him.”

“Thanks, Phichit. You’re a real amigo, you know that?”

Phichit’s face clouded. “Did you take them down? Why? Where did you put them?”

“They’re in my desk, if you have to know. And why do you think?”

There was a pause, then Phichit said more quietly, “I thought you’d be really excited he was here. Did…did he have bad news for you or something?”

“No.” Yuuri sprang out of his chair and went to the kettle to make himself a cup of tea. “No, it wasn’t bad news at all. He wants to collaborate with me on a research project.”

Phichit gasped dramatically, and Yuuri couldn’t suppress the smile that spread across his face. “Yuuri, that’s…wow! You must be _combusted_ about this. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”

Yuuri chuckled and dropped a peppermint-and-cacao teabag into a mug. “Yeah,” he agreed, finally allowing the fanboy to poke his head above water. “And I’m showing him around the town on Sunday, apparently.”

Phichit practically leaped off of his desk and gave Yuuri a firm pat on the back. “I’m so happy for you. I bet you’ll have a great time.”

Yuuri’s stomach gave a lurch.

_Sure, it’s what I’ve always wanted._

_So what is it that I’m so scared of?_


	5. Chapter 5

Somehow Yuuri got through the rest of the day, and Saturday too, though he was so constantly keyed up that he could barely remember his own name at times, or so it felt. Every time he tried to focus on, for example, neuropeptide Y receptors regulating calcium and potassium channels, or neuromuscular junctions and end plate potentials, the memory of Friday morning’s bombshell meeting and all its questions and implications would fragment his concentration yet again. There was no way he could relax enough to focus on ESP, and Phichit still had his brainwave-entraining gadget, which Yuuri kept forgetting to ask him to return. The up side to this was that as long as his brainwaves were galloping like a herd of gazelles fleeing from a pack of lions, he didn’t have to worry about the possibility of any presences trying to contact him, because he would not be able to detect it.

According to the biochem monitor, which he’d finally given in to the temptation to check, his adrenaline was constantly spiked, his cortisol was conducting an endless off-key symphony, and his HPA axis was angrily demanding an explanation for it all as it struggled to keep up. He was surprised his chip hadn’t blown again.

In an attempt to shut his churning thoughts and stomach down and give his overwrought system some kind of outlet, Yuuri spent most of Saturday exercising: he took an extra-long jog around the city, visited the campus gym, and danced with holograms in his living room. Though this time he didn’t request a partner. He didn’t know what to do about _that_ anymore, either.

_He entered my life for what, ten minutes? And it feels like everything’s coming undone._

It didn’t occur to him until he was on the second leg of his T journey to the campus Sunday morning that he hadn’t thought for a moment about possible research topics for himself and Victor. He’d been so caught up in the whole idea of working with him in the first place that he had never even considered what they might, as two professionals, actually achieve together.

The thought of it was…intriguing. Exciting. Certainly the least anxiety-provoking thing about the whole situation so far. He wondered if Victor had anything in mind.

He got off at the Kendall Square station and crossed the short distance to Building 46 – and spotted Victor standing on the green with the blank look of someone checking their chip. He wore black flannel pants, black oxfords and a black bomber jacket embroidered with a gold dragon whose tail looped around the back of the neck. Its head, suspended just over a breast pocket, flowed with horns and whiskers; and the thread glittered in the sunlight. It was sleek but not ostentatious; and, like the suit he’d worn to their previous meeting, a work of art in itself that complemented the beauty of its wearer rather than detracting from it. Yuuri’s determination to make a more dignified appearance this time evaporated as he stared at the vision in front of him, the embarrassment of his mundane jeans, fleece and tennis shoes nipping at him like an angry gnat.

_He is so out of my league in so many ways, it’s laughable. After today, he’s going to disappear back to Harvard or Columbia or wherever, and pretend none of this happened. Get a clue, Yuuri._

When Victor saw him approaching, he blinked and smiled. The sunlight dusted his hair and cheekbones. Yuuri couldn’t shake the feeling that he was viewing an exhibit in a museum; he was suffused with that same feeling of wonder and admiration that he was familiar with from the best of everything life had to offer. The rustic glow of a New England forest in the fall. The rich, melodic notes of a well-played instrument or sonorous voice. Natural foods expertly combined to produce exquisite flavors. A meteor silvering across the cold black sky.

_Don’t mind me, Victor. I’m just going to look at you for a long time. And thank you for the privilege. Then you can go whenever you’re ready._

Yuuri returned the smile and shoved his hands in his pockets.

_If I keep thinking of him as some kind of god, this is doomed from the start. I can at least give it a chance of working, can’t I? He’s a man. A man._

_Oh is he ever a man…_

“Yuuri, good morning,” Victor said warmly.

“Good morning,” Yuuri returned quietly. Then he realized Victor was waiting for him to say more. He groped for words. “You got here OK, then.” _Just like he did on Friday, you complete gonk._ He winced slightly. “I mean – ”

“Yes, I walked. It isn’t far; I’m staying at Wendell Terrace, just north of the Harvard campus. This is a lovely town. Do you live nearby?”

“I, um, live in Eastie. That is…that’s east Boston. Not far either, though I usually take the T here. The subway. It’s the fastest way, though it doesn’t take that long on foot.” _Like he really wants to know all these things. Oh god, I’m hopeless at this._

For a moment, Yuuri seriously considered giving up. The black tendrils of humiliation were crawling inside him, choking him, threatening to pull him under – just like they had when he had given his presentation in Stanford; just like they’d tried to do when he was a boy and reality cracked and broke into a jumbled puzzle that wouldn’t fit together.

_I can’t do this. I can’t play this game. Please don’t try to make me. I don’t know why you came here, but…just go back and leave me alone. I can’t –_

“So where would you like to go?” Victor asked. “And how should we get there?”  

“Well…” Yuuri took a breath, finding in the pleasant sound of Victor’s voice some solace from the attacking thoughts. “…downtown is over there, across the river. We could…walk, if you want? It’s a nice day, and the cherry blossoms are out on the Esplanade – that’s a walkway along the river. Unless you’d rather – ”

“Great. Let’s go.”

Yuuri gave a small smile. “OK.”

As they crossed the campus, the April sun spilling onto stone and brick buildings and the tender green shoots of leaves, Yuuri wondered what else to say. Even though he knew he wasn’t any good at small talk, it couldn’t be that difficult.

“Did you bring a bike here?” he asked.

“No, though I wish now that I had. I’d love riding around here; it’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is…well, you could always rent a Hubway bike if you wanted. There are stations all around. Things are pretty close together here though, too; and there’s the T, and taxis. Um, we’ll just head for that bridge over there.”

As they walked across, the Charles River glittered wide and blue underneath, and the skyscrapers downtown shone a hard bright gray. Victor told Yuuri a little about Harvard – the place itself, rather than the work he was doing there. He’d been moving so much of his equipment into his new office that it had taken most of Friday and Saturday to arrange.

“And it’s nice being in an American city with more of a past,” he said, the breeze fluttering the long bangs over his face. “Well New York has that too, of course, but this place has a different feel to it. The streets are like the ones you find in Old World cities – a bit of a maze.” Yuuri laughed and nodded. “Then just this morning, there was a fellow dressed like he was from the eighteenth century, tricorn hat and breeches and everything, strolling down the road in front of my apartment building, staring at a biometer in his hand. If it wasn’t for that, I might’ve thought I was seeing a ghost.”

Yuuri chuckled again. “There’s a lot of people like that around here. Probably someone who gets paid to attract tourists in groups and then take them around the Freedom Trail or something; lots of stuff to see if you’re an American history buff.”

“Well he looked very dapper, anyway. You know, sometimes I wonder how long men are going to carry on wearing suits when they could be dressed like that instead. Much more fetching, if you ask me. Maybe it’ll come back into fashion one day.”

Yuuri saw a sudden image of Victor dressed like Paul Revere, and his breath caught in his throat and his mind went blank. Shit, he’d lost his place in the conversation – and to his surprise, it seemed to have been going OK up to now.

“You like it here, don’t you?” Victor commented as they reached the end of the bridge and Yuuri steered them toward the bicycle and pedestrian path along the river. The pink petals of the cherry trees were luminous against the deep blue hues of water and sky.

“I’ve lived in a few cities,” Yuuri answered, glancing at Victor to his side and then looking ahead. There were numerous cyclists and dog walkers sharing the ribbon of gray concrete with them here. Most were dressed casually, like Yuuri, though some sported flashy Chinese-style fashions, or even kilts, courtesy of the Scottish boyband that had become famous worldwide. “This one isn’t honestly that different, but…it’s kind of like it knows where it’s going and where it’s been. And if you stay for a while, you sort of discover how to feel it out intuitively – the winding roads, the old mixed with the new. I love working at MIT; it’s a real privilege. But I can’t honestly say I feel at home here. Though I’ve never really felt at home anywhere. Sometimes I wish I could live in the countryside, but with the job I’ve got, I don’t see how that could happen. When I’ve got the time, I like to take trips out to the western part of the state; hiking in the Appalachians is amazing.”

Victor stopped and gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “You know, that’s the most you’ve said to me since I got here?” His voice was gentle.

Yuuri felt a tremor; he’d been running his trap off and hadn’t even realized it. “I’m sorry, I – ”

“Don’t apologize. It’s nice. I…I’d like to know more about you, Yuuri.” He looked around. “Where to next?”

He thought for a moment. “The Public Garden is near here, though there’s not a lot to see. It can be a good place to go at lunchtime, though, if you want to get out for a walk; it’s not far to go, and it gets you away from things for a while.”

He felt Victor’s gaze on him again, heating his skin. “I imagine you like to get away like that sometimes.”

When Yuuri shot a look back at him, he was relieved to find no hint of criticism in those blue eyes. But he was still wary as they walked again. “It must sound really dull. Here I am, taking us around parks and things; if there’s any place you’d rather go – ”

“No. I’m happy here with…this is good. The views down the river are breathtaking, too. Hang on a minute.” He pulled an aircam the size of a small coin out of a jacket pocket and tossed it into the air, where it hovered like a bumblebee, taking photos of their surroundings and Victor himself. Then he tucked the aircam back into his pocket and they entered the garden, where a bronze statue of George Washington on a grey stone plinth loomed down the straight concrete path. They carried on past it, while Yuuri told Victor more about Boston – just general information he thought anyone new to the area might be interested in, though he felt he was stabbing in the dark because he didn’t know what Victor’s interests _were_ apart from science. He mentioned the sports teams, good places to eat, and the prettier areas of the city, including “Little Venice,” the eastern part of downtown that was slowly being subsumed by the rising sea and had become an unlikely national curiosity for people who wanted to ride around the wave-lapped buildings in gondolas.

They carried on in silence for a while, Yuuri sneaking glances at Victor, who looked back at him in what seemed to be a friendly sort of way. _Do you even_ like _parks, or are you just trying to humor me?_ Yuuri decided he had to speak up again. “So, um…are there places like this near where you live in New York? What do you like to do there?”

Victor thought for a moment. “Oh, I – ” Then he spotted something further down the path, and his eyes lit up. “What are those?”

Yuuri turned in the direction he was staring. The lake in the middle of the park – they called it the lagoon for some reason, though there was nothing tropical about it – shimmered before them, mirroring the green of the surrounding trees, its glassy gray depths in the center sparkling with drops of sunlight. An open-air pontoon boat with several rows of seats, about half of them occupied, was cutting itself a path at a leisurely pace. There was a fat white sculpture of a swan at the back, behind which sat a young man in a baseball cap. It seemed to be the boat that Victor was asking about; there were more of them moored at a dock on the other side of a little pedestrians-only suspension bridge that spanned across the water.

“The swan boats? They’re kind of a tourist thing, I guess. Like coming here and eating clam chowder or a dunkie.” When Victor gave him a quizzical look, he said, “Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“They’re pretty.”

_Tour guide mode again, I guess._ “The jack in the baseball cap is pedalling the boat; the swan’s there to disguise him. The first swan boats were built in the nineteenth century, inspired by a Wagner opera, where swans pull a boat carrying a knight on his way to rescue a maiden.” He added quietly, “Not…that I…spend so much time here that I’ve read all the information plaques or anything…”

Victor laughed. “That would be _Lohengrin_ , wouldn’t it? The opera?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“We should go, then. On a boat.”

“What?”

“Wouldn’t it be fun?”

Yuuri looked at him.

“You say it’s a tourist thing to do. I’m a tourist today. Come on.”

Victor led the way across the suspension bridge to the dock, Yuuri following. There they bought tickets and soon had the middle bench to themselves on a swan boat that drifted sedately across the middle of the wide lake, real swans and ducks occasionally gliding along beside them.

Yuuri realized this was the first time he’d actually been a passenger on one of these boats in all the time he’d lived here. It would ordinarily have been pleasantly relaxing. But he was bewildered by the continual jumble of thoughts and feelings inside of him. Occasionally he would glance again at Victor, sitting nearby but not quite close enough that they were touching. The way the silken strands of his hair fell to his nose, gleaming in the golden sun, lifting in the breeze, was somehow mesmerizing. Yuuri wanted Victor to like him. Didn’t know what to do or say to make that happen. Felt certain that whatever he did, however hard he tried, he would disappoint; would not measure up to expectations. Every time he thought these things, his guts felt like they were tying themselves in knots. And then his inner fanboy would explode onto the scene with, _Oh my god I’m with Dr. Victor Nikiforov!_

Frankly, it was exhausting.

Well there was one obvious thing they had in common, which they hadn’t spoken about yet.

“Victor…about the research project you wanted to – ”

“Oh, we’ll have plenty of time for that. Isn’t it nice to take a break from work for a while? It’s beautiful here.”

“Oh…”

His stomach flipped when he saw Victor reach a hand toward him. There was a feather-light touch on his hair, and then Victor was holding a pink petal in his fingers, which he rubbed between them and dropped into the water. Then he gave Yuuri a smile. “There. Though it kind of suited you.”

Yuuri stared. A strange warm feeling circulated in his abdomen, mixed with the painful realization that he was lost for words. Again. And the easiest ones he could find, about the field in which they were both well qualified, Victor didn’t want him to use. He had a wild urge to cut a hole through the bottom of the boat and sink into the waters below, where he would at least be hidden until his oxygen ran out.

_He’s forcing me to be honest, then. Either that, or I’m going to spend the day in agony, wondering what I should say and putting my foot in my mouth._

“Victor,” Yuuri said, looking directly at him and trying to achieve some firmness, “I…I have to admit I don’t understand why you decided to come here and work with me. You’ve got the whole scientific community to choose from. Nobel laureates. They could help you go from strength to strength – ”

“What makes you think you couldn’t?”

Yuuri blinked, then shook his head in confusion.

“What makes you think you couldn’t help me go from strength to strength? You’re a genius, Yuuri.”

At that, Yuuri huffed and looked at Victor like he was out of his mind.

“For one thing. For another…I like your approach. I can see it in the research you’ve done; in the things you’ve _chosen_ to research and the way you go about it. You used the word ‘intuitive’ earlier. I think that’s a good description. Too many scientists lack that. But it’s a quality that seems to define you, and it’s…inspiring.”

A crooked smile fought its way across Yuuri’s face, somewhere between _that’s ridiculous_ and _oh my god I am combusted._

Victor’s expression sobered. “But I don’t want to force you into anything. If you think it isn’t a good idea, or if you’re busy – ”

“No. No, I…I really want to do this,” Yuuri gushed. He took a steadying breath. “Thank you, Doc…um, Victor. But…are you sure you don’t want to talk about topics? We’ve got all day.”

Victor gave him a radiant smile. “Exactly. Show me around the Hub, Yuuri.”

When they left the park, Yuuri led them through the quaint cobblestoned streets of the Beacon Hill area, red-brick terrace houses huddling together among antique lanterns, window gardens and creeping vines and trees. By now, not being a mind-reader and Victor still having given him no indication of what he himself preferred, he’d decided that the only option was to share things that he enjoyed and hope he wasn’t boring Victor to tears. They poked around a little second-hand bookshop, which continued to fight for an existence despite the Cloud; a cheese shop; and a clothing boutique Victor liked the look of, where he bought a cream-colored sweater. He would be an ethereal vision in it, Yuuri imagined; but then Victor was the kind of person who could wear a bag and look like he was in the middle of a fashion shoot.

When Victor asked him if there was anyplace around that was good to eat at, Yuuri took them to a local bar. It had a touch of Old World charm and still employed human beings to cook and serve food and drinks, which gave it a warm, friendly atmosphere that Yuuri liked, even if he didn’t often go there himself for the purpose of socializing. Old oaken timbers stretched across the ceiling. A large 2D screen mounted on the wall in the corner was showing a baseball game.

They found a wooden table near a window with views of the terrace houses outside, draping their coats over the backs of their chairs. Victor wore a plain maroon-colored Henley underneath, while Yuuri wore a turquoise T-shirt. They each looked at the menu, though Yuuri already knew what he wanted.

“Have you been here before?” Victor asked.

“Sure, lots of times.”

“Can you recommend something good, then?”

Yuuri thought for a moment. He didn’t know any more about Victor’s taste in food than about his taste in anything else. “Are you a vegetarian? Or a vegan, or – ”

“No,” Victor laughed, “no special diet for me. Just tell me what’s good to eat.”

“OK then, ask for a regular three-way. They’ll know what you mean. With fries, or a salad, or whatever you want on the side. The food’s all good here. It’s been a while since I had that myself, but I used to…um, well I’d recommend it.”

They went to the bar and Victor got what Yuuri had suggested – which ended up being a sliced-beef burger with mayonnaise, melted cheese and barbeque sauce – along with fries and orange juice. Yuuri asked for a bunless cheeseburger, coleslaw, a side salad, and a glass of ice water. As they waited at their table for the food, they watched the pedestrian traffic pass by outside the window. Yuuri examined the intricate gold dragon on Victor’s jacket, glinting as it hung on his chair, and had made up his mind to ask him about it for lack of anything else to say, when Victor spoke first. He rested his chin on one hand and looked straight across the table at Yuuri.

“It feels like a long time since the Stanford conference.”

There was a pause, and Yuuri couldn’t understand why. What was Victor waiting for him to say? _Yes, and the longer, the better. I want to blot it out of my memory permanently._

“I guess so.”

“It’s good to get the opportunity to talk to you like this.”

Yuuri simply stared. “Um…”

“So…is there anyone else in your life? You know…to go hiking in the Appalachians with and so on? A significant other…Phichit, maybe?”

Yuuri’s heart gave a lurch and he felt his cheeks flush furiously. What the fuck did he want to know _that_ for? If Russians really were this informal with people, it was no wonder relations between their two countries had been strained for time out of mind. He searched Victor’s expression for any sign of smugness or sarcasm, and found none. Though they hadn’t been acquainted long, he suspected those qualities might be rather alien to the person sitting across from him.

Bewildered, he replied, “No…and definitely _not_ Phichit. Though we were roommates for a while. I go hiking on my own.”

Victor grinned and nodded. “Me either. Though a few years back – ”

When their food arrived at that moment, Yuuri had never been so grateful for an interruption in his life. He jumped straight into talking about it, hoping the topic would stick, and it did. Victor said his burger was _vkusno_ , which Yuuri gathered meant delicious, and he seemed to mean it. He himself indulged in a squirt of barbeque sauce on his own burger.

As they ate, he found his attention increasingly drawn to the baseball game on the 2D screen, which was stirring similar interest in patrons at the bar and at other tables. “C’mon, Bazzah!” someone shouted as a gray-uniformed batter stepped up to the plate. “Bases loaded, jack.”

“This could be good,” Yuuri commented, watching the screen intently.

Victor turned around to have a quick glance, then looked back at Yuuri. “Are you a baseball fan?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say so. That’s the Red Sox, the local team. I don’t follow them religiously, but…well, it’s fun putting the game on. It’s a good way to unwind. Unless they’re completely bombing.” He chuckled.

He reacted along with the audience at the drama of pitcher versus batter on the screen. The count was soon full, and Bazzarelli kept hitting foul balls, one of which was almost caught on the fly.

“I don’t know if I can watch,” Yuuri said with a smile, still staring at the screen. “Fucking hell, that’s tense.” There was a whole chorus of shouts of encouragement at the screen now.

Victor gave a little laugh, continuing to watch Yuuri instead of the screen behind him.

A resounding crack split the air as the bat made contact and the ball sailed across the screen. Several of the people in the room jumped up from their chairs, waving their arms and encouraging it to keep going, as if their combined voices could lend it momentum. Yuuri didn’t stand, but he called out with them, clenching his fists on the table.

The announcer declared it was a grand slam. The room erupted into yells, whistles, claps and cheers. “Yes, fucking-A!” Yuuri enthused, punching a fist. Then he sat back as he watched Bazzarelli’s victory lap, shaking his head and laughing. “Wicked pissah.” Then he came back to himself and looked at Victor like a child who had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Uh, sorry,” he said, raking his hair back. “Just…um, being a local. For a minute.”

To his surprise, the smile Victor gave him was warm and fond. A few hours ago, Yuuri would have found it unsettling. But now that Victor had told him that he _inspired_ him…and then he’d sat here and sworn and acted like a complete clinker in front of him, and Victor could still smile back at him like that…it made him start to wonder why he’d been torturing himself for the past few days when maybe, just _maybe_ , it was actually all right to be himself. Somehow Bazzarelli’s grand slam, of all things, had given him the final encouragement he needed. What a funny world. He grinned as he prodded the remains of his salad with a fork.  

“I don’t know much about baseball,” Victor said, folding his arms on the table. “Football – what you call soccer here – and ice hockey are the main sports in Russia. You say that’s the local team on the screen?”

“Yeah. The stadium where they play isn’t far from here – just across the river from the campus, in fact. Though they’re playing away today. Looks like they’re in Cleveland.”

“We should go see them together sometime. My treat. You can teach me the basics about baseball.”

Yuuri stared for a moment, feeling his cheeks warm again. Then he gave a small huff. “Um, yeah, OK. Sure. But…you’ve been in New York for a while, haven’t you? Yankee Stadium is near the university. You’ve never been to a Yankees game?”

Victor shook his head. “Too much work to do to think about attending spectator sports, I suppose.” He paused, looking at Yuuri almost shyly. “I have a colleague who’s New York through and through. He sounds like one of those actors from the movies…Al Pacino? He’s tried to get me to go a few times. ‘Whatterya doin’ tonight, Victah, thatcha can’t leave fer tomorrah?’ he says.” There was the shy smile again as he watched Yuuri for a reaction.

Yuuri’s eyes shot open wide and he guffawed. A Russian imitating a New York accent was not something he’d ever expected to hear, and Victor was surprisingly good at it. Victor sat back in his chair looking pleased.

“It’s a little different here,” Yuuri said. “You’ve probably noticed already. The classic one everyone says is, ‘I’m gonna pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd.’” He drew out the nasal twang, and Victor snorted in laughter. “It’s an old one though, because you can’t park a car there anymore. And it’s probably about as welcome as going to Texas and saying ‘Howdy, cowboy’ to the first person you see wearing a hat.”

“You’re funny, Yuuri,” Victor said, still chuckling.

Yuuri grinned silently and looked down at his empty plate.

“Where should we go next?”

They spent the next couple of hours wandering through the downtown area. Yuuri pointed out T and Hubway stations he thought Victor might find handy. They passed some of the historical buildings, though Yuuri had been to Europe for conferences and he knew that in most places there they would not even merit the word ‘old.’ Victor said that in St. Petersburg, where he’d grown up, many of the buildings dated to the eighteenth century. His expression was animated as he spoke, and Yuuri could see a love there for his home city. He wondered how often he was able to go back and visit.

Eventually Victor said he needed to return to his apartment and unpack more boxes, as he hadn’t finished moving in yet. He explained that while he was retaining the place in New York that he shared with a friend, he was going to be spending most of his time here. His way was to the north, while Yuuri’s was to the east.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better guide,” Victor said. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” Yuuri said quietly, his hands in his pockets.

“So would you like to meet tomorrow morning, if that fits with your schedule? We could talk about research topics, if that’s OK?”

“Um…yeah, I can do that. I’ll give it some thought tonight.”

“Great. Well, then. See you tomorrow, Yuuri.”

“See you, Victor.”

Victor turned to leave, giving Yuuri a wave goodbye a moment later. Yuuri stared after him like someone who couldn’t decide whether he was awake or dreaming.


	6. Chapter 6

Yuuri’s breath puffed out in dissipating clouds of white steam as he jogged past some of the areas he’d explored with Victor the day before. The city was coming to life, with store owners arriving to open for business, commuters fortifying themselves with cups of coffee or danishes, busy T-trains rumbling past where they emerged aboveground, and the usual stream of driverless taxis and hovercraft. When the latter became more affordable to ordinary people, Yuuri dreaded to think of the potential chaos in the air. Maybe then it really would be time to try to find that place to live in the countryside.

But today he saw a certain charm in all of it, lit as it was in the golden sunshine that was quickly dispelling the cold of the night. As the tall gray cement and stone buildings gave way to parks and then to the river, Yuuri filled his lungs with the brisk air, did a little pirouette as his chip played one of his favorite get-up-and-go songs, and quickened his pace, heading across the bridge. Strange how he couldn’t recall feeling such a sense of…belonging, of ownership, of the place before. This was his town. He was on his way to _MIT_ , where he worked as a neuroscientist, and how fucking awesome was that? And _Victor Nikiforov_ was going to be meeting with him today because they were going to be doing a research project together.

If he’d downed a whole bottle of champagne, Yuuri figured he wouldn’t feel more drunk on life. His laughter silvered through the air and he bobbed his head to the music as he covered the rest of the ground to the campus. When he arrived, he showered and changed at the gym, and made his way to his office to be greeted by Phichit.

“Hey, Yuuri! I’m going to be at the computer science and AI lab most of the day; just organizing a few things here first.” He lowered his voice and looked at Yuuri expectantly. “So…don’t keep me in suspense. How did yesterday go with Victor?”

Yuuri sat down in his chair, biochem monitor in hand. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such a high endorphin reading, and he shoved the gadget back in a desk drawer with a grin quirking at the corners of his mouth. He told Phichit about taking Victor sightseeing and to the bar. “Nothing earth-shattering,” he said. “You know, just tourist stuff you’d do with someone who was new to the area.”

Phichit stared at him for a moment, then gave him a knowing smile. “Then what’s with the buzz this morning? You on a caffeine high or something?”

“What do you mean?”

“You jogged here, didn’t you? When was the last time you did that? Your eyes are bright. You’re _glowing_ , Yuuri.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “I’m not pregnant, Phichit, for god’s sake.”

“I think this is gonna be such a good experience for you, working with Victor. You’ll have to keep me updated. Say, how about if I clear some stuff out, and then if Victor ever wants to work in here with you, he can use my desk?”

“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

“No problem.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to ask Phichit how his own weekend had gone, when the Friday interrupted. “You told me to inform you when Dr. Nikiforov had arrived, Dr. Katsuki. He’s waiting to enter the building.”

He leaped out of his chair, smoothed wayward strands of hair, made sure his shirt was tucked in. Phichit laughed. “Shut up,” Yuuri muttered good-naturedly as he dashed out the door.

Yuuri could of course have immediately contacted someone downstairs and told them to let Victor in, but he wanted to greet him himself, so he hurried through the corridors and soon arrived at the main entrance to the building, where he saw Victor standing outside with a blue canvas satchel over one shoulder. He was wearing a tan-colored suit that was more pedestrian-looking than the sharp togs he’d arrived in on Friday. Yuuri let him in, and they stepped into the atrium area.

The white Lego-brick walls shone in the sun filtering through the skylight high above; and the slanting stairway rails cutting through the surrounding walls and the crisscrossing windowpanes threw gray projections onto the vast screenlike spaces, fading in and out as clouds passed by. A scattering of plants and trees had been added to soften the sharp edges and planes, but did little to detract from the overall clinical effect.

“You know,” Yuuri said to Victor as they crossed the floor on their way to the security desk, “I could never understand why people seem to think that just because you’re a scientist, that means you want to work in a building with plain white walls everywhere. Sometimes I think it’d be fun to come in here wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of rollerblades and skate around, and leave gray rubber track marks everywhere, just to break it all up.” He began to smile; then his mouth turned back down as he thought about what a prize clinker he must sound like. _Endorphin readings that are too high aren’t any better than ones that are too low. They mean you’ll be tempted to act like a drunken idiot. You’ve just made a spectacular start._ “Uh…”

Victor smiled back at him and gave a chuckle. “I never thought about it like that before, but you’re right. I’d join you.”

Before Yuuri could think how to respond, they’d reached the security desk, and Yuuri told the man on duty to give Victor permission to enter and leave the building and all non-confidential areas within, including Yuuri’s office. He felt Victor squeeze the top of his arm lightly while asking where to go from there, as he hadn’t learned his way around yet. His hand dropped away so quickly that Yuuri thought he must have imagined it, apart from the lingering glow he felt where he’d been touched.

“Um, now that you’re authorized personnel, so to speak, you should be able to get a visual map overlay from your chip,” Yuuri said. “If you want it. But come on, we’ll go up together.”

On their way down a long white hall, they passed two women and a man in crisp gray identical suits, who continued to stare ahead as they walked without any acknowledgment that Yuuri and Victor were there. Yuuri watched them go, wondering where they were headed, but they soon disappeared around a corner. “They’re back again,” he mumbled.

“Who are they?” Victor asked, his brow wrinkled, obviously picking up on Yuuri’s concern.

“People from the government. When I was told someone was looking for me on Friday, I thought at first that was what you were, since they didn’t know your name.” He tilted his head to indicate that they should keep walking, and while they went, he explained in a low voice, “They come here sometimes to make sure people abandon their plans for research projects if they don’t approve.” His next words were almost a whisper, though he knew it was pointless, because if someone was listening they would hear him regardless. “I’ve had colleagues who’ve had just one private conversation, when they were sure they’d turned their chip off, but these people still showed up. So either someone can listen in when you think you’ve turned your chip off, or every single room in every single building is bugged.”

After a pause, Victor said, his words also quiet, “I’m used to it. It’s the same at Columbia.”

“Is Russia like that?” Yuuri suddenly thought to ask.

“It’s worse.”

“Christ.”

They arrived at Yuuri’s office and went inside. Phichit wasn’t there, but he’d cleared the area around his desk as promised.

“I know it isn’t much, but home sweet home,” Yuuri said, indicating Phichit’s chair for Victor to sit in, which was identical to his own. He went over to the drink-making facilities near the sink. “Friday, tint the window a little, will you? There’s a glare in here.”

“Certainly, Dr. Katsuki.” The window was instantly tinted a light smoky gray, dulling the sharp rays of sun.

Victor laughed as he draped his coat over the back of his chair and sat, placing his satchel on the floor next to him. He was wearing a pink button-down shirt. “Nice voice.”

Yuuri humphed. “Not my choice, but I keep getting outvoted.”

“Could be worse. Ours at Columbia sounds like an English butler. It feels like what he really wants to do more than anything else is serve us tea and cakes.”

“Speaking of which, want a drink?”

“Coffee, if you don’t mind,” he said, watching Yuuri plunge Phichit’s rapid-heat rod into a jug, the water boiling instantly.

Yuuri flicked the switch on the coffee machine, then dropped a rosehip teabag into a mug for himself. “I, um…don’t think I’ve got anything in here to eat…”

“It’s OK, I had breakfast. What were you using to boil the water just now?”

“Oh, that’s something Phichit invented. He’s working on refining it so he can get a patent.”

“Handy.”

“Yeah. Cream and sugar?”

“A little of both, if you’ve got them.”

“Well, we may not have much room to work with here, but we’ve got a few creature comforts at least. Though that kind of stuff is mainly Phichit’s.”

“What happened to your photos?” Victor asked, looking at the wall next to Yuuri’s desk.

Yuuri dropped the spoon he was holding on the floor, where it thunked on the gray carpet. He quickly picked it up and rinsed it, feeling heat creep into his cheeks.

Victor watched him. “Oh,” he said suddenly, “I’ve got a call from Columbia coming through. I’ll just go out into the hall and take it. Won’t be a minute.” With that, he rose and nipped out the door.

“Thank god for that,” Yuuri muttered under his breath, putting Victor’s mug of coffee on his desk and then sitting down at his own, tossing the teabag away and drinking his tea. He wondered where on earth they should begin. What they should talk about. What Victor expected. And again, why he was actually here. Every time he thought about it, it just didn’t make sense.

A few minutes later, Victor came back in and picked up his mug, taking a sip of coffee. “This is lovely, thank you. I was thinking…would you like to give me a tour of this place, and we can talk?”

“Tour guide again, eh?”

“Get us out of the office for a while. And there’s so much to see here.”

“Sure, if you like.”

They put their suit coats on, took their mugs, and Yuuri began to lead them back through the hallways, pointing out the labs and explaining what he understood of the projects taking place in them. Unsurprisingly, Victor turned out to be something of a celebrity among his colleagues; they all recognized him when they saw him, and Yuuri had to explain several times over that Victor was there to work with him. He could say little else yet, because that was about all he knew himself so far. A couple of professors attempted to engage Victor in longer discussions about his research, but he tactfully cut the conversations short, promising to talk later, and urged Yuuri to lead the way back on their tour. Yuuri was impressed by his charming yet firm manner; he was clearly used to dealing with these kinds of situations.

When they were finished looking around the building, Victor suggested they go outside, so they left their empty mugs at the security desk and ended up strolling down a tree-lined path near the river. Yuuri realized that in the process of trying to be a good guide, he’d talked about nothing else, and wondered again how to approach the topic of their collaborative research.

“So you’ve been here a while, haven’t you?” Victor said as he walked at Yuuri’s side. “Even though you’re what – twenty-four? You were one of the youngest people ever to study here.”

Yuuri nodded but said nothing.

“Were your family here with you?”

“For a couple years, until they moved to England. My dad works at Oxford.”

“They left you here by yourself when you were sixteen?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I was in a dormitory, until I got the apartment. Went to classes. It was fine.” He paused. “ _You_ were sixteen when you went to study at St. Petersburg University. Not that…um, I mean, I – ”

“Yuuri, have you followed my career?” Victor said brightly.

Yuuri blenched. “Who hasn’t,” he muttered almost inaudibly. “Everyone in the field of neuroscience knows who you are, or they’ve been living under a rock. I mean, some of your studies, and your inventions, have been landmarks – ”

“I’m flattered by your interest. But…what about you? What do you feel you’ve achieved here so far?”

 _Achieved?_ He envisioned an interrogation by a dour-faced panel of middle-aged university dons in a job interview, and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down at the path as he walked. “Well…I’ve only just been allowed to lead my own research. I guess I was working toward that all this time, waiting for the chance to really explore my ideas. Not that I didn’t enjoy the work I did in the meantime. Though it was kind of awkward at first when I was young, I’ll admit.” He turned his head away from Victor and gazed across the river as he spoke. “People treated me like their kid brother, for the most part. Well, I guess that wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t really fit in. My brain was happy here, at least.” Victor huffed a laugh. “The rest of me caught up eventually, I suppose. But, what have I achieved?” He shrugged. “I think everyone expected me to have done more by now, but…”

“Papers on the neurobiology of hallucinations, the neurochemical effects of sugar intake, the long-term effects of aspartame ingestion?”

Yuuri stopped and turned to look at him in astonishment. “You know about all that?”

“ ‘The neurochemistry of aphrodisiacs in the male sexual response’?”

Yuuri was helpless to stop the flush of heat to his face. “Well…yeah. I was invited, it wasn’t my idea. But someone’s got to study this stuff.”

He quailed at the smile that spread across Victor’s face. “So it seems. Maybe you can give me some tips about that sometime.”

A shiver passed through Yuuri and he simply stared, a weird numbness descending on his brain. _Is there a rule book for how to deal with you?_ he thought desperately. _Because I have no clue what to do. Are you making fun of me? Is this your way of breaking the ice? Is this just what you’re like with everybody? Is…no. No,_ that’s _not an option either; it’s completely impossible, apart from in my wildest dreams._ He swallowed.

Victor resumed their walk, Yuuri silent at his side. “Well, thinking in particular about the papers we presented at Stanford, it looks like we both have been looking at dopamine, schizophrenia, that kind of thing.”

Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief as he felt himself grounded on familiar territory once more. “Yeah, looks that way.”

“Dopamine’s probably the most well-studied neurotransmitter associated with schizophrenia and psychosis, would you agree?”

“Traditionally, yes.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Traditionally?”

“Well, who’s to say that its place in the aetiology of symptoms is as fundamental as people believe?”

“A lot of research, for a start.”

“It seems to be more of an underlying assumption. Like when fluoxetine was tried for high blood pressure, obesity, psychosis, even severe depression, and it didn’t work, but they got results with a few patients with mild depression. So they marketed it as an antidepressant, and over time people – even scientists – began to assume that low serotonin caused depression, because fluoxetine was supposedly proven to cure it. Though it’s all pretty shaky evidence, and of course it’s never actually been proven that low serotonin _does_ cause depression. Though it does cause various problems, that’s not in doubt. So…” _Why is he looking at me like that? Oh god, I’m rambling._ “…so isn’t it just as simplistic to say that low dopamine causes psychosis?”

Now it was Victor’s turn to stop and stare. But a corner of his mouth turned up, which Yuuri took to mean he hadn’t offended him at least. “You want to have a debate about this, do you?” he asked. “Believe me, I’m all for new ideas. But they have to be based on the available evidence.”

“I agree. But I wasn’t trying to – ”

“So let’s debate, then. I happen to know just a little bit about this topic. Let’s see what you think. To start with, Kebabian and Greengard found that the existence of an adenyl cyclase might account for the increased amount of adenosine three-five monophosphate associated with synaptic activity in the superior cervical sympathetic ganglion.”

“Right,” Yuuri responded straight away, “that’s been associated with low concentrations of dopamine.”

Victor appeared to be momentarily surprised, and Yuuri felt a twinge of satisfaction. Then Victor continued, “Well yes, exactly. But Greengard mainly focused on the hyperpolarizing influences of presumed interneurons in the ganglion, whereas one thing I researched years back was the link between the receptor and coupling to G proteins, followed by influences on adenylate cyclase and related molecules.”

Yuuri answered, “Greengard found the levels of the two GTP-binding proteins to be five- to sixfold higher in the striatum than in the substantia nigra, indicating a preferential localization in the somatodendritic region of striatonigral neurons and providing a basis for the low efficiency of D-one receptor coupling in the substantia nigra. Which was an obvious influence on your paper, ‘Impaired prefrontal-basal ganglia functional connectivity and substantia nigra hyperactivity in schizophrenia.’ ”

Victor fixed his gaze on Yuuri like he’d discovered the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. His eyes flashed with excitement. “I…I didn’t know you knew so much about this.”

“I don’t. I’ve read your research, done a little studying of my own, but…”

“It’s best appreciated if you look at it actually happening in a holographic model.”

Yuuri stared back at him, his blood racing. “Show me.”

***

For Yuuri, the morning kindled, danced, and then blazed. They returned to the office and he called up the hologram of the brain over his desk, each of them gesturing to areas with a pen. Then they were covering the old-fashioned whiteboard on the wall with diagrams and chemical equations, writing and erasing and rewriting. It was of course possible to network their chips and do this mentally, but Yuuri found he liked the feel of the physical implements in his hands, and the hard presence of the whiteboard and the drawings; it made them more real, somehow.

Far from complaining, Victor obliged, rolling his shirtsleeves up and matching Yuuri’s building enthusiasm. He asked Yuuri whether he wanted to carry on their discussion for a while yet; and when Yuuri nodded, he was surprised to see Victor making calls via his chip to reschedule appointments he had that day; something Yuuri never would have asked of him. But having committed himself, Yuuri could hardly regret the choice, and he told the Friday to reschedule his own appointments, some hidden part of him drunkenly celebrating the revelation that Victor found it worth spending time with him in this way.

Yuuri further entrenched his position as devil’s advocate that concentrations of dopamine were not as relevant as generally accepted in the aetiology of psychosis, while Victor easily held his ground, each of them accessing published studies for evidence, including their own, over their chips. More exciting for Yuuri than the debate, however, was the knowledge of the workings of the brain that Victor was showing him. He decided he could sit in his chair all day and listen. One of the world’s foremost experts, here, explaining it all just for him…

When Phichit opened the door and walked in, Yuuri suddenly noticed that beyond Victor and the whiteboard, there was an office and a building and someone else in the room with them.

“Wow, how long have you two been working in here?” he asked, putting a briefcase down on his desk and eyeing the whiteboard. “That’s some serious-looking stuff.”

“We were just, um, talking…” Yuuri began. Then he spotted something on the board in his own writing and felt his cheeks turn red. _Not again. Shit._

“Is it that time already?” Victor said, turning his attention from the whiteboard. “We ought to go have some lunch. I saw some trailers outside the building that sell different things. Yuuri? Phichit?”

“I’ve got my own lunch here, thanks all the same,” Phichit said. He flashed Yuuri a smile. “Go on, looks like you could do with a break.”

“Uh…” The error – _his_ error – on the board refused to allow him to push it from his mind. And he’d brought his own lunch anyway, as he usually did.

“Yuuri, maybe you could show me where to buy the best food out there?” Victor coaxed.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

Victor rested his hand lightly on Yuuri’s back as they walked to the door. Once in the corridor, Yuuri led the way, but the error was scraping and worrying at him. _He must have seen it._ He stopped and turned to face Victor.

“Changes in action potentials,” he said.

“Ah. Yes. It was just a trivial mathematical error, Yuuri; surely you could see yourself that it didn’t make any difference to the outcome. I didn’t see any reason to – ”

“That’s what the editor said. Those exact words. Trivial error.”

Victor’s eyes were warm, and he briefly placed his hand on Yuuri’s back again before allowing it to drop. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go outside and get lunch.”

“You heard about it, didn’t you?” Yuuri said as Victor walked alongside him. “What happened at the conference? That Oxford professor – ”

“Yes, I did. That was shocking behavior on her part.”

“But it’s true – I can’t do math to save my life.”

“Anyone who looked at the whiteboard in your office would disagree, I think. It was one mistake, Yuuri.”

“But one mistake can make all the difference. What if Einstein had said it was ‘e equals mc _cubed_ ’?” He shook his head as Victor laughed, wondering where he’d found the wherewithal to make light of the issue. “But he wouldn’t have, because he was Einstein. I’m just Yuuri Katsuki, and I think an integral sign looks more like something that belongs in a musical score.”

 Victor laughed again. “You know, you’re right about that. You really are funny, Yuuri. I love it.” His last words trailed away oddly, as if his thoughts had changed halfway through.

They were crossing the atrium now, and passed through the doors outside to where the lunch trailers had been parked. There was Chinese fast food, burgers, and a salad bar. Yuuri went toward the latter without hesitation. It wasn’t very popular with the students, which meant the line was short. Victor joined him.

“You can get something else if you want,” Yuuri told him. “I’ll meet you before we go inside.”

“It’s OK. I like salads.”

Yuuri shrugged and folded his arms across his chest, the brisk spring breeze making him wish he’d put his jacket on.

“Yuuri, if it’ll help, I can double-check the math for anything we do together. I’m not saying I never make mistakes myself, but two pairs of eyes can be better than one.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri said quietly, his embarrassment beginning to melt away in the light of Victor’s seemingly genuine acceptance.

They took their salads back into the building, and Victor asked if Yuuri would like to sit in a nook where there were chairs and sofas surrounded by tall potted plants and trees, the sunlight streaming through greenhouse-like glass walls that offered a view of other buildings nearby. Yuuri agreed, and they each settled onto a sofa, facing each other with a small table between them.

“It’s nice just here,” Victor observed, looking around as he ate.

“Yeah, less like a lab, I guess.”

After a pause, Victor looked back at Yuuri with curiosity in his eyes. “I was wondering if you explained and defended your research at the conference like you were debating with me upstairs this morning.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow, then huffed and put his empty plate down on the table. “Are you serious? It was a disaster. Didn’t they tell you?”

“That’s not what they said, no. But…you really know what you’re talking about. You got me thinking – ”

“I’m no good in front of crowds,” Yuuri blurted. “I’m not proud of it, but I guess you may as well know.” _Lesson number two in getting to know Yuuri; lesson number one having been I’m a mathematical dunce. Are you regretting the fact that you came here yet? If not, there’s more…_

“Well,” Victor said in the same quiet tone he’d been using since they’d left the office, “maybe you just need some confidence. Working together might help – what do you think?”

Yuuri looked at him. Amazingly, Victor seemed undeterred so far. “OK,” he said warily.

When Victor finished eating, they got hot drinks from the office and returned to the nook near the atrium, again taking their respective positions on the sofas, Victor declaring it was his favorite spot on the campus.

“This is what most buildings need – more sunlight, more things that grow, more comfy furniture.” He sighed contentedly, crossing one long leg over the other and sipping his coffee as he looked at Yuuri.

“You know, I agree with that completely.”  

Victor smiled. “I’ve been wondering, Yuuri – why don’t you write more papers, now that the university is letting you choose and lead your own research? You could’ve written one about your adaptations to the TMS harmonizer, instead of passing it on to someone else.”

 _Why does everyone ask me this?_ “I…well, it does what I hoped it would do. I guess I was satisfied with that.”

“Hm. So it’s not a topic you wanted to pursue any further.”

“I suppose not, no.”

Victor drained the remaining coffee, put his mug on the table, sat back and looked long at Yuuri, who shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“What _are_ you interested in, Yuuri? What…excites you?”

Yuuri felt a throb of heat in his abdomen and took in a small quick gasp. _That’s not what he meant. At least, not seriously. Jesus, Yuuri, get a grip._ His mouth felt dry as he tried to think of a response.

“Nutritional neuroscience? Aphrodisiacs? We could…develop the ideas in that particular paper some more.” He gave a playful smile. “Something else?”

 _You like disconcerting people – that’s your game, isn’t it?_ Yuuri thought with a quick surge of annoyance. And it was working on him, every time. Maybe Victor just liked trying to provoke a reaction. Yuuri suddenly wished he knew someone who had been around him personally for a while, a colleague perhaps, who understood how to handle these situations. Victor could be hoping he would throw some innuendo straight back at him, and then they’d have a good laugh and forget about it. Yuuri had seen a few old British films that were masterclasses in it. But…that wasn’t who he was. And it wasn’t empty innuendo to him either, not where Victor was concerned.

_Just be yourself._

_Oh god._

He looked down, sipped his peppermint tea, and took a moment to gather his thoughts. _You want to know what excites me as a neuroscientist? All right. Let’s see what you make of it._ He put his empty mug on the table and met Victor’s gaze. “We’re both interested in the causes of psychosis, right?” Victor nodded. “Especially involving dopamine, like we were talking about this morning.” He sat back, his arms folded across his chest. “Well, one thing I’m interested in – one thing I’ve always wanted to study – is what constitutes a religious or transcendent experience versus a psychotic one.” He searched Victor’s eyes – he hadn’t been expecting this. There was a hint of surprise, of curiosity, maybe of skepticism as well. Yuuri continued, “I want to know what happens in the brain. Similarities; differences.”

Victor was silent. Yuuri decided he would make no apologies for being truthful. This topic didn’t just interest him; he was passionate about it, for reasons that would have to remain unspoken. But Victor had given him a challenge, and he had answered it. _Your move._

When Victor replied, it was in a measured tone. “I’m willing to further investigate what happens in the brain during psychosis, especially a psychotic break – that’s within my main area of specialism, as you know. It’s…interesting that you want to compare it with a religious experience. I wonder, would you be trying to prove anything in particular?”

Yuuri’s reply was equally measured. “I…want to find out what might be revealed; what could be learned.” _Why everyone thought I was going crazy when the ESP started – including me. I don’t believe now that I’m crazy. Help me find out what’s going on, Victor. If…if there actually is anything within our power, with the technology available to us, that can give us some answers. Give_ me _answers._

Though Yuuri knew his words were vague, Victor had obviously gathered enough to say, as a statement rather than a question, “This is important to you.”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“I, um…it’s just something I’ve always been interested in.”

Victor stroked his chin with a finger. “It’s got…possibilities.”

They spent the afternoon discussing them there in the nook, as the sun swung across the sky and the shadows shifted and lengthened. That was one sign of the passage of time; another, Yuuri discovered, was that his rear was sore from sitting on the sofa for hours. He and Victor had taken a break at one point to get more drinks, but other than that had been talking and accessing information and past papers on their chips almost nonstop.

There was plenty of human traffic through the atrium, and some people occupied spaces nearby for a while, but they were not interrupted. It was common for scientists on the campus to leave their offices and labs and meet with each other in different places, and Yuuri supposed it was obvious that he and Victor were doing just that.

“So if we’re talking practicalities – how we’d do this in a lab – ” he ventured, when Victor interrupted him.

“Look at the time. Is it six o’clock already? How did we miss everybody going home?”

Yuuri turned around and caught a glimpse of the empty atrium. He should have realized, from the deepening shadows as the golden sun dipped below the campus buildings, how late it was. “A lot of people here kind of keep their own hours,” he said. “You know, projects and research going on all the time. If you need to get back – ”

Victor smiled. “No, no, it’s just that I’d been wondering why I was hungry again. But I’d like to carry on for a while longer and hammer out some more definite ideas before I go. If that’s OK with you?”

 _Is the sky blue?_ “Yeah, sure,” Yuuri said, returning his smile. “Though the food trailers outside will be closed by now.”

“Why don’t we order something in, then? How about pizza?”

“Um…I’d better not. But there’s a good Indian restaurant nearby; we could get a drone from there.”

“Indian food, eh? I’m not very familiar with it, but it sounds nice. Could you make some suggestions?”

“Sure.”

Yuuri opened the atrium door to admit the drone when it arrived, then removed the food from inside and let it back out. They settled down to samosas and curry, Yuuri skipping rice and bread, though Victor seemed to want to try a little of everything and had a filling meal.

“You don’t eat very much,” he observed conversationally, pulling a piece of naan off the main slab and dunking it in curry sauce.

“I, uh…” _No, he doesn’t need to know. Not any of it._ “I’ve got a ton of curry here; I’m just not a fan of bread or rice.”

“No rice? Aren’t you Japanese?”

 _Are you always this direct with people?_ “Yes…well, my family is. I’ve lived in the U.S. most of my life. You know, I don’t even like Japanese food that much.”

“Really? Well, this is _vkusno_.”

Yuuri smiled and ate. He thought it was just as well to get back to the subject at hand, unsure how he could carry on the more personal conversation, and said, “So as regards studying transcendent and religious experiences – though it might be an idea to differentiate between the two, because I don’t think it would be very rigorous or accurate to lump them together – I was thinking along the lines of telepaths, psychic mediums, maybe even people who have had near-death experiences…”

Victor put his fork down and sat back, chewing bread and giving Yuuri an intensive stare. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why not people who have already been featured in studies – lucid dreamers, or meditating monks, for instance?”

Yuuri returned his gaze and couldn’t help a slight smirk. “Because they’ve already been featured in studies? When we looked at some earlier, you…uh, will have noticed they didn’t find anything much of interest.”

Victor’s brow wrinkled. “There were clear results. Dominance of the right hemisphere. Limbic system activation. Inhibition of the prefrontal association cortices – ”

“Like I said, nothing much of interest.”

Victor was looking at him now as if he were an unusual exhibit under a microscope, and reflected the smirk. “Just what kinds of results would you expect, then?”

“I want to find out how those experiences are generated. What’s actually at the core of what’s going on. How does ‘limbic system activation’ explain reading someone else’s thoughts, or – ”   

“Now wait a minute,” Victor said, holding a hand up. “None of these categories of subjects you’ve mentioned have ever been proven to have had those abilities or experiences in the first place. You can’t begin from an unsound premise like that.”

“They have been, to my satisfaction. There are studies – ”

“But they haven’t been, to many other people’s. You have to prove telepathy actually exists before you can explain how it works.”

Yuuri sighed and looked at him for a moment. _You really don’t know much about this, do you?_ “For some people, all the proof in the world wouldn’t be enough to get them to change their minds.”

“Someone who thinks that way shouldn’t call themselves a scientist.”

“Then there are a lot of scientists who ought to quit their jobs, because they aren’t skeptics in the true sense of the word. They don’t have open minds.”

“There’s a difference between having an open mind and letting everything in without questioning it.”

“I didn’t say that. Having a critical eye is the other side of the coin. But some people forget about the first side.”

Victor laughed and shook his head. “I’m going to enjoy working with you, Yuuri. Your point of view is…refreshing.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh back, amazed that Victor wasn’t getting up and walking out the door right now, never to return. He was astounded himself by what he’d just said. It seemed as if being with Dr. Victor Nikiforov, far from intimidating him further into his shell, was now motivating him to come out fighting. Not because he aggressively wanted to argue or even debate, but because he felt strongly about the subject, and, he supposed, was curious about Victor’s response. _I’ll probably think about all this later and go into meltdown in horror at my own idiotic audacity,_ he decided.

“I can see we have a lot to talk about still,” Victor said. “It’s always good to build on an existing body of research if you can – at least, that’s _my_ point of view. Maybe with a less…controversial group of subjects.”

“Sure, OK. But at the same time, I don’t want my only contribution to the existing research to be, say, a more accurate measurement of brainwaves, that they’re edging into delta – ”

“ _I’d_ be interested in that.”

“You’d be easily pleased, then.”

“You sound like someone who won’t be happy until he makes the next completely unexpected discovery.”

Yuuri gave him a faint grin and shrugged. “There’s something to be said for that, too. But…well, why don’t we measure the brain activity of Native American shamans? There have been a few studies, but not many. Maybe we could find something new.”

“Shamans,” Victor echoed, thinking this over.

“Yes.”

“Interesting. But – would they be chipped? It could cause some difficulties if they aren’t. Surely most of the instruments here work via brain-computer interface. Would we even be able to persuade them to come to the lab?”

Yuuri’s grin widened. “Leave that to me.”


	7. Chapter 7

_Leave that to me._ Yuuri shook his head as he sat on his sofa, the sipping noises he made as he drank his tea amplified in the silence of the living room. He’d been feeling on top of the world by the end of that conversation, not long ago. Where had so much arrogance come from? Victor was right – it could prove to be difficult to recruit and study the cohort he’d suggested. Some of their scientific instruments would need adapting. There would be other things that perhaps they simply would not be able to do, without a lot of ingenuity at least, such as monitor certain biophysical processes in real time. But had it bothered him? In that moment, if someone had asked him to pull the moon out of the sky, he might have said, _Sure, why not? With Victor here, I can do anything._

“I am a loon,” he said aloud to himself.

“Would you care to rephrase that, Dr. Katsuki?” the Friday asked pleasantly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

He chuckled. “No.”

Before Victor had held out his hand and they’d shook and parted for the night, he’d told Yuuri that he anticipated coming to MIT two or three times a week, depending on his schedule; he would have to see how things panned out from one week to the next. Yuuri was pleasantly surprised at this, though Victor said he could just as easily conduct research there as elsewhere via his chip, so why not cut down on travel time between universities? He would also be flying back to New York on occasion, mostly on weekends, to continue with some work at Columbia, though he hadn’t mentioned what the nature of that was. Yuuri imagined it must be demanding to be doing work for three different universities, and wondered again why Victor was interested in being here with him at all.

He’d also realized, thinking back over the day in a kind of hazy, befuddled contentment, that Victor had been allowing him to make all of the major decisions about their project. True, he’d nudged things in certain directions, but in the end it had been Yuuri’s main ideas that they’d agreed upon. As if Victor had planned it from the beginning, he hadn’t even suggested any ideas of his own – not that he couldn’t, Yuuri was sure, but because he wanted to do whatever Yuuri was interested in.

He shook his head. “Why?” he whispered. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Can I be of assistance?” the Friday responded.

“You can be quiet until I tell you otherwise.”

Well if Yuuri was bringing his own expertise to their study of the shamans, he knew Victor would be bringing plenty to the second part of the study, which they’d barely begun to discuss, and that would presumably be to take the same measurements of people with psychosis. Witnessing Victor at work firsthand like that would be a privilege, just as it had been that morning when he had been pointing things out to Yuuri in the holographic brain.

But before his fanboy could reassert himself, Yuuri recalled the somewhat traditional mindset that Victor had given hints of. Not that that was bad. But it was something Yuuri yearned to challenge. It was one reason why phenomena like telepathy were still largely unexplored by the scientific community, because so many of its leading lights refused to accept that they were even real. When Yuuri had tested these threads with Victor, he’d been gratified to discover that he seemed to relish a challenge, rather than resent it, which was…very promising for future collaboration. The push and pull of two minds interacting. Or other parts of the body, for that matter.

Yuuri felt his cheeks go red. It was one thing having those thoughts before he’d met Victor. But it felt…sleazy now. They’d known each other for a grand total of three and a half days.

He still couldn’t believe he’d taken such risks with their fledgling relationship, either, when perhaps he should have been more deferential.

 _No – if he’s going to like me and respect me, it’ll have to be for who I am, not who I pretend to be._ As frightening as that felt, it was necessary – because what other option was there?

_What if he ends up thinking I’m some tinfoil-hat-wearing crank, because I’m interested in “woo”?_

That was the derisory word for ESP, telepathy, psychic phenomena, ghosts and so on that self-styled skeptics had used for decades, though Yuuri had already shared his thoughts about the true nature of that kind of skepticism. And Victor hadn’t used the word once. If he had, Yuuri wasn’t sure they would have been able to reach across such a breach in their approaches. And for that he was thankful.

He put his mug down and hooked the brainwave-entraining device around his ear, which he’d persuaded Phichit to give back after several attempts, though he’d also asked for the specs so he could build one for himself. This was going to be the only way to relax tonight, Yuuri knew, because his mind would otherwise continue to churn endlessly over what he and Victor had done and said all day. His whole system buzzed with the exhilaration of it. But it had to stop, because eventually he would need to get to sleep.

 _Let’s see if there’s anyone around._ He mentally switched the device on and stretched out on the sofa, tucking a cushion under his head.

He felt his breaths quieten, and the chatter of his thoughts gradually fell into a soft background. As he gently prodded a request into the void for anyone nearby to make contact, he saw or imagined a sea of prismatic colors flowing around him, warm, like a perfumed bath…and floated. God yes, he’d been needing this, even if no presences came along.

_[Hello, you. It’s been a while. I’m glad you’re still there.]_

That was the “feeling” of someone Yuuri thought of as Dove. His heart gave a little leap of glad recognition. Peace, contentment, light, compassion, they were all what this person exuded, and Yuuri wondered what it would be like to meet them in real life. He could imagine them as a guru or a monk, or maybe someone like a doctor or charity worker who loved to help people. _[I’m glad you’re here too. You’re wonderful.]_

_[So are you. Follow me. I have something to show you.]_

There was a stream running through a forest under a bright sky. Yuuri imagined he could smell pine needles and earth and papery brown leaves. He understood that Dove, wherever they were, wanted him to approach the gurgling clear water and look into it. He did so, but saw nothing but smooth pebbles shimmering under the shifting glassy surface.

 _[I’m confused,]_ he sent.

 _[Look down. At the rock._ In _the rock.]_

They wanted him to…to see in a new way somehow. In past sessions, before Dove had really learned how to soar, Yuuri had sent them understanding of how to do certain things: create boundaries so that they only shared what they wanted to; focus their concentration so that they had more control over what they were doing; refine the “thoughts” they sent out so that they could be better comprehended. Things he taught anyone who was receptive and kept coming back. But Dove had been an unusually quick learner, and now he was sensing a desire to reciprocate. They’d learned something they wanted to teach Yuuri.

 _[Like this,]_ they sent.

Yuuri was vaguely aware of letting out a quiet gasp from his physical body as the essence of himself was tugged forward, down…and _through_ the surface of a white rock shaped like a saucer with parallel gray striations. But even though he was inside the substance, there was no sense of confinement or constriction. It was how he imagined it might feel to visit an atom, its constituent parts separated by seemingly vast distances, though from an incomprehensibly faraway perspective those parts appeared to comprise a tangible object. Here, in inner space, there was nothing but flashes and clouds of light, and energy, seen and unseen; a tapestry of life, settling into the patterns that would produce one small white striped rock in a stream.        

 _[It’s conscious, in its own way,]_ Dove sent.

 _[This is…wow. Wicked flink.]_ The words would not come across to Dove, of course; there was no knowing if they even spoke English. But the sentiment should be clear enough. It was amazing…completely fucking awesome.

_[Try it with something else. I know! Come with me.]_

They were whizzing through a vast blackness. Past galaxies, nebulae. Yuuri wondered if this was what it was like to ride a wildly galloping horse across some open and free land, the wind in your hair, laughter bubbling up inside of you. It felt like he and Dove were the only beings who had the secret of this. He was drunk with it.

_[I felt like that too, the first time I discovered it. Great, huh?]_

Yuuri just laughed and flew with them to a bright pinpoint that quickly resolved itself into a scintillating sphere of yellow light. Incredible heat radiated from it in waves, but it didn’t hurt. They dove straight in, and again down, down into the core of its being. To Yuuri’s surprise, the interweaving of light and energy was similar to that of the rock, but in different patterns, with a different… _feel_ to it…a different kind of consciousness? The in-between spaces were present as well, though a little less vast.

_[How did you learn this?]_

_[I played. Wanted to see what was possible.]_

_[It’s incredible.]_

_[I know! We should – ]_

They were falling; ripped away from wherever it was they’d gone, hurtling back toward themselves. Neither of them had willed this. Fear filled the black void like a specter.

 _[What’s happening?]_ Yuuri called, scrabbling, telling himself he must be calm.

No answer. Dove was there, but the consciousness was scattered, unable to form into anything coherent.

_[Tell me. Please!]_

_[!!!!!]_

Shock. Something completely unexpected, and…threatening. Dangerous. The urge to flee. Yuuri didn’t know what he could do to try and help. The swirl of feelings from Dove was clouding him as well, trying to pull him under. They were faded now, probably in a high-brainwave state that was making communication all but impossible, even for two who were practiced at it.

_[Send me an image. Anything. I want to help if I can.]_

A long, thin black snake coiled around the smooth oval of an egg.

“No!” Yuuri shouted, straining to hold on to the last threads of trance that formed their increasingly tenuous link. _[What is that? What does it mean? What’s happening?]_

_[…]_

_[No…please. Come back.]_

_[…]_

He held on, but there was nothing to hold on _to._ The prismatic colors were back again, and he was drifting.

A sob heaved its way up his throat. He shoved himself to a sitting position, pulled the device off his ear and placed it distractedly on the table. That wasn’t just communication ending. That was consciousness being savagely cut off while the person was silently screaming. The feel of it shivered through Yuuri, over and over.

If he didn’t know any better – and he didn’t – then the only way to explain it would be if they had been knocked out, or…or…no, it didn’t bear thinking about.

It had happened again. While he had been a witness, helpless to do anything about it.

He jumped to his feet and kicked the table as hard as he could. “Shit!” Then sat back down while his toes inside his shoe throbbed.

Anger was better than fear, because at least the former gave the illusion of some control. But it was the latter that gripped Yuuri long into the night, creeping into his dreams with the image of the Orphic egg, a talisman that whispered doom to whoever saw it.

***

_I can’t believe I’m here. I never thought…_

Yuuri felt like a little boy on Christmas, which was just about enough to temporarily dispel the disquiet that had been hanging over him the past couple of days after his experience with Dove. Victor had invited him to see his new office at Harvard, and he’d been looking forward to it – with good reason, he thought as he took in the room full of metal gadgets, tangled wires, screens and lights, scattered precision tools, lasers, and components ranging from the size of a coin to somewhat larger than a coffee maker, as well as the solidly built single desk in the middle of the room, made of what looked like mahogany, possibly an antique. There was a huge window behind it, like something in a cathedral, curved in an elegant wood-framed arc at the top. An ormolu clock hung on the wall nearby, clearly for decoration, since everyone’s chip told them the time of day. The room and its furniture spoke of the wealth and tradition that the university was known for, while the electronics that Victor had populated it with brought it rather incongruously into the mid-twenty-first century.

“What’s that?” Yuuri asked excitedly as he dashed over to the largest machine.

Victor chuckled. “Friday, dim the window a little, will you please? Yuuri doesn’t like the glare.” Then, addressing Yuuri as he walked inside, shutting the wooden door behind him, “I’m afraid it’s in a mess still; I haven’t had much time to get things organized in here. It’s a nice place though, I think; old-fashioned in a dignified kind of way.”

The window tinted itself into a slight fog, diffusing the light, making everything in the office somehow softer. Yuuri ran his fingers over the machine, giving Victor a questioning look.

“Well, it’s clumsy. So are the wires. They’re OK in a pinch, when I’m experimenting and don’t want to have to go into all the programming that wireless tech would involve. Sometimes my ideas don’t get very far off the ground.”

“Victor,” Yuuri prompted him impatiently.

“All right. I’ve been working in my spare time on refining magnetic imaging techniques to make them more accurate, if I can. One day, of course, the goal is to be able to study the activities of a single neuron. There’s a long way to go yet, but well…one step at a time.”

“This is a kind of MRI, then?”

“Until I can shrink the size of it, you could say so. I’m embarrassed by how clunky it is so far, to tell you the truth.”

Yuuri just shook his head in amazement and proceeded to explore the rest of the room, Victor almost shyly explaining what other pieces of equipment either did or would hopefully do when he was finished with them.

“It’s like Aladdin’s cave in here. But you’re a…I don’t know, a mad inventor or something. I knew you were into tech, but this…” Phichit would be incredibly impressed by it all, he thought, and no doubt understand far more about it than he himself did.

“Well…hopefully not mad at least,” Victor said with a small grin that seemed to betray an odd hint of sadness.

“No, of course not, I didn’t mean…” Yuuri’s voice trailed off. He’d barely been in here a few minutes and he was putting his foot in his mouth again already.

“You might find this interesting,” Victor said suddenly, his eyes alighting on an object on the corner of the desk shaped like a large silver pen. He picked it up and walked to where Yuuri was standing, only stopping when they were centimeters apart. Yuuri glanced over the crisp lines of his white shirt, buttoned at the wrists; the collar gapping open, the pale hollow of his neck and a hint of hard muscle underneath. He wore a touch of some kind of cologne; lavender, he thought. Caught between the instinct to put the desk between the two of them and do something highly inappropriate about the pulse of desire that suddenly swept through him, Yuuri closed his eyes, swallowed, and imagined himself in the void he visited when he used his ESP. It often calmed him when nothing else worked – if he could summon enough concentration, that was. He felt a little of the tension melting out of him.

“May I?”

Yuuri’s eyes shot open. Victor was holding up the penlike gadget.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a grin, seeming to sense Yuuri’s discomfiture, “this just takes measurements of various neurological processes in the body, once you give it permission over your chip. I thought you might be interested. Why don’t I show you what it does for me.” He held it up in front of him and it beeped, then he stared ahead for a moment as if analyzing a readout in his visual field.

“Hm. Highest brain activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, hippocampus and amygdala.” He flashed Yuuri a pleased smile. “I’d interpret that as all the thinking and planning that are going into our research project. Looks like it’s a good stimulus.”  

Yuuri knew the functions of all these areas like the back of his hand. Executive thinking, planning, memory. But then…emotion and instinct? Those would emerge from a stimulus of a different kind. _Are you teasing me?_ he wondered briefly.

“Beta waves dominating at 25Hz,” Victor continued after a pause. “Bit of a shortage of potassium ions, if I want to be working at optimum capacity. Guess I’d better have a banana with lunch.”

“What? Can I have a look?” Yuuri asked, his interest piqued as Victor mentioned the potassium measurement. Victor handed him the pen and messaged him his readout. “I was going to say it was impressive enough that you managed to cram all those functions into a small portable instrument like this. But the idea of measuring ion exchanges… _I_ didn’t think of that.” He laughed as he examined Victor’s stats. “Looks like you’d better put plenty of salt on that banana.”

“I should’ve had an energy drink after my morning jog,” Victor mused as Yuuri handed the pen back. “What do you mean, you didn’t think of that?”

Yuuri picked up his carryall from its place on the floor, sat it down on top of the desk, and rummaged until he found his biochem monitor, which he handed to Victor. “It’s a biometer that I adapted to show a few extra things. Ion exchanges didn’t cross my mind; I don’t know why. I ought to add that. Try it if you want. Just give it permission to analyze you.”

Victor took it, and after a moment he and Yuuri were looking at the readout. A grin crept across Yuuri’s face; he couldn’t help it. Victor was enjoying himself, healthy and happy and alert, and here was the objective proof. Not that Yuuri believed Victor had been lying to him or putting up some kind of façade; but it gave him a warm glow to know that someone else felt like this when they were with him. More reason, as well, for him to stop worrying about trying to make a good impression, or inadvertently making a bad one. He wanted to slouch over with relief. Out of all the nervous, anxious times he’d checked his own readings, the most important thing this gadget had ever shown him was someone else’s.

“Yuuri, this thing is amazing,” Victor enthused, examining it again. “Now you’ve got _me_ wondering why I didn’t think of that.”

Yuuri laughed as he gently took the monitor from him and returned it to his carryall before Victor could ask him to share his own readout. He suspected it would betray his body’s responses and didn’t want to have to face the embarrassment. “So you wanted to talk about our project?” he said quickly.

“Ah, yes. Thanks for visiting me here, Yuuri. It’s been fun showing you around.”

“Sure. I can’t believe I’ve been at MIT all this time and hardly set foot over here. It’s beautiful.”

“Do you want anything to eat or drink before we start? I’m afraid your office has the advantage over mine in the way of facilities, but there’s a little kitchen down the hall.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

Victor gave him a smile and sat down in his office chair behind his desk; he’d wheeled a similar one in for Yuuri from another room, and they sat next to each other while staring ahead at their chip screens. Yuuri had taken a moment to gauge a distance that would hopefully be far enough from Victor to minimize distractions without seeming rude.

Once they reviewed the plans they’d made so far, Victor turned in his chair to face Yuuri, one arm resting on his desk while he stroked his chin with the other. “I like the two-part nature of this. Most people would do one component or the other, and of course it’d be simpler that way; but it should be instructive to compare the two cohorts.”

“That’s what I thought,” Yuuri said, warming to the subject. “It’d give us a chance to find something new, maybe even groundbreaking.”

“If we found there was no difference in the data from the two groups, that would be interesting in itself.”

“…Yes.” _Though I doubt that’ll happen._

“What I’m still not sure about, though,” Victor said after a pause, “is the spiritual element of the study.”

Yuuri felt his heart drop, but he remained silent.

“I can tell that’s something you’re really interested in, so just hear me out,” Victor said gently. “I think it would be difficult…awkward…to get into the, um, _nature_ of whatever experience our subjects – the shamans – are having. Science would still struggle to empirically show what exactly that is. But what we _can_ do is focus on what’s happening in the brain during those experiences. From what I’ve learned, that’s been the essence of, for example, studies on people who are meditating. It’s impossible to say what, if anything, they’re in contact with, inside themselves or without, but the physical changes that have been recorded as taking place are real enough.”

Yuuri planted an elbow on the desk and ran a hand over his cheeks and chin, thinking quickly. In a way this was no surprise, because it was the mainstream approach to such phenomena. But it was disappointing coming from Victor, and confirmed his suspicion that his views were not significantly different, despite the wonderful things he had achieved. And yet if Yuuri were honest with himself, it was a conundrum he often pondered upon and failed to find an answer for. He knew well enough that ESP was real – though he wished there were a better term to use, because “extrasensory perception” seemed such a poor way of encapsulating it. Yet as a scientist, how could he prove it? Was there a place where empirical measurements and personal experience could meet, once enhancing rather than clashing with the other? He’d more or less come to the conclusion by now that there was a problem with how far anything empirical could be made to describe the nature of reality; that a focus on what the five senses alone revealed was too limited in its scope. But then you were questioning the entire basis of western science for the past several hundred years, and your colleagues would tell you to take off your tinfoil hat and laugh you out of the room. How could this – _any_ of this – be conveyed to Victor; and would he understand?  

“Yuuri?” came Victor’s quiet voice. When Yuuri turned to look at him, his expression was curious and a touch concerned.

 _I understand what you’re saying, Victor. But you’re asking me to throw away any hope of being able to discover they very thing I’m looking for._ He wondered how he could build some element into the study that would still enable him to do what he wanted, even if it were less than he would have liked.

“I…um, sorry, Victor. Just thinking.”

Victor nodded and sat back.

“Have you ever thought…” _Tread carefully._ “…about the readings we get from the body – neurochemical, electromagnetic, all that…what their cause actually is? I mean, there’s often an assumption that abnormal levels result in certain responses – states of being, moods, behaviors. But what causes the abnormal levels? What if it’s the person having an experience, and their physiological response comes out of that?”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “I suppose one can feed into the other. Stress-related illness, for example. Or…external stimuli, such as what you eat.” He paused. “Is that why you’re interested in nutritional neuroscience – because you want to examine this chicken-and-egg thing; how the mind affects biophysical processes, and vice versa?”

Yuuri’s eyes widened at Victor’s quick and accurate comprehension, and he felt emboldened. “Yes, one reason. So if we gather a lot of data on what we’ve measured in the minds of our subjects during the study, how do we work out the…origin? Whether something within them – abnormal maybe, or unusual – caused them to have those experiences; or whether their experiences influenced those readings?”

Victor smiled. “I…I don’t know. I suppose the most important thing would be to collect the data and then draw conclusions from it.”

“I know what most scientists would do. They’d assume the shamans were manipulating their brain functions in some way, to give themselves the illusion of having a spiritual experience.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? Scientists can be religious people.”

“But most of them aren’t. Most of them make assumptions from a baseline belief in materialistic reductionism. To them, the most important thing we can do is unravel how all these cells and chemicals make us believe we’re conscious. Consciousness being nothing but our higher reasoning capacity, and the personality that arises, based on our brain makeup and life experiences.” _Shit, that was a mouthful. What’s gotten into me?_

Victor’s smile widened into one of surprise. “This is all very philosophical, Yuuri. And I can’t honestly say what the answer is. But do you think it makes any difference to the study we’re planning?”

“It does…if we want to find anything out about the authenticity of what they’re experiencing. How real it is.”

“Yuuri, we have no way of measuring that. Which is why I said I think we need to look at the data we can gather that can be empirically verified, and try not to speculate on metaphysical things that science can’t answer.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “Is that what you believe? That science has no capacity to even question things like that?”

Victor seemed taken aback by his enthusiasm. “How could it? Look…I’m not saying I’m not as curious as you are. I think these are some interesting issues you’re raising. But if we’re going to design, execute and publish a study, I think it’s important to consider how it’ll be received by the scientific community at large. They expect empirical, quantitative results. If someone conducts a study they consider to be…too unorthodox in its approach, shall we say, no one will pay attention to it; and no matter how valid or ingenious it might be, they will have been wasting their time, because nothing will change.”

“Quantitative results.” Yuuri sat back himself now, folding his arms across his chest, wrestling his frustration down. “I’ve heard that before, too. People who invalidate whole areas of science, like anthropology or psychology, because anecdotal evidence – people’s experiences – are considered less valid than ‘hard’ facts and figures. Well, people with opinions and preconceived notions design and conduct questionnaires. They design entire studies, in fact. And yet they like to think, or wish, people can act like robots, and that a scientist can ever be completely neutral and unbiased. So how far are we expected to kowtow to these people, no matter what prestigious positions or awards they have? Their views…they’re ossified. They’re holding science back, and that needs to change.”

There was silence as they looked at each other, and then Victor blew out a breath. “I had no idea you were so passionate about this.”

Yuuri felt a wild leap of fear in his heart. He’d really done it now – allowed his private convictions about the profession he’d entered so many years ago, and had become disenchanted with in these important ways, to surface in all their rawness. In front of _Victor._ Who might be too polite to tell him to his face how fragged he thought he was, but would soon announce his plans to abandon his work at MIT, claiming it stretched him in too many directions, that he was just too busy…

He felt like crying. But he also wanted to try to repair the damage, if it were possible.

“Victor, I…” Yuuri began, feeling his voice hitch. Those blue eyes were intent upon him, but he couldn’t read what was in them. “Um, I just want to say that I know how to conduct a study according to the accepted procedure, and I’m aware of the need to keep my audience in mind. I don’t want you to think that what I said just now would cause me to do anything unprofessional. I…was…just expressing my feelings.”

“I know,” Victor said quietly, and Yuuri jerked his head up slightly. “I’ve read your papers. They’re as good as they come. And…I appreciate you telling me about the ideas and beliefs you bring to what you’re doing. I think it helps if…colleagues share those kinds of things, so they understand each other’s point of view.”

Yuuri sighed in relief, placing his arm on the desk again. “Yeah. So…I guess you’re going to tell me what a niff gonk I am.”

“Only in the sense that ‘stupid idiot’, which I think you just said, is a tautology.”

Now it was Yuuri’s turn to look at him in surprise, and then an amused laugh escaped his lips, which Victor returned.

“OK,” Yuuri continued as the laugher died away, “would you agree to a qualitative element to the study, then? I’d like to find out about the shamans’ subjective experiences during a trance, when they started having those experiences, how they’ve dealt with them over time, and so on. It could be helpful to compare that with the psychotic experiences of the second group.”

Victor considered. “That could be interesting. But in order to be certain we’ve clearly differentiated between the cohorts, we’d need to conduct some thorough psychological testing to be sure the shamans are free of psychotic symptoms.”

“Diagnostic interview schedule, basic personality inventory, Eysenck personality test – I’m on it.”

“Well, then. I think this is shaping up nicely, don’t you?”

 _I really hope you think so._ “I can’t wait to get started.”

“Me either…but how about getting a bite to eat first?”

***

“Yuuri, you won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you!” Phichit announced as he burst into the office. He stopped when he took in the sight of his friend, lounging back in his chair with his eyes closed. “Hey, you OK?”

“Huh?” Yuuri sat up and ran a hand through his hair. _Well, not really. I’m worried about this Orphic egg thing. What if it happens to_ me _, Phichit, what then? And on top of that, I’m getting the Victor Nikiforov Experience several times a week. Only, it’s not how I ever imagined it would be. It’s confusing. Exhilarating. Frustrating. Exhausting. On top of that, I’ve got to carry on doing my usual job somehow, though my brain is all over the place. In fact, I’d probably make a really good experimental subject right now._ “Yeah, fine,” he said aloud. “Just tired.”

“How are things with Victor?”

“We’ve finalized our research plans and are getting it all off the ground. That’s taking some work. Recruiting volunteers, and then making sure we’ve got the technological capability to do what we want to do with them in the lab, is going to take some work. We’re splitting research duties for the literature review at the moment.”

Phichit sat down at his desk and pulled several components out of a drawer, then looked ahead as he accessed his chip. His breathing was heavy, as if he’d run into the building. “So is that your way of telling me everything’s flink?” He turned and gave Yuuri a pointed look.

“I guess so.”

“What about…you know…do you think there might be a chance for the two of you – ”

“Phichit,” Yuuri grumbled. “I’m not sitting here looking at the photo on the wall anymore. This is a flesh-and-blood human being. It’s different.”

“Yeah – better, I would’ve thought.”

“We hardly know each other.”

“Looks to me like you’re getting there pretty fast. He comes here a lot for someone who’s just working on one project. Come on, then, what’s he like in person?”

Phichit was like a woodpecker; he would keep hammering at a subject that interested him until he forced a weak spot and found out what he wanted to know. But he always did it so charmingly that people didn’t mind telling him in the end. Yuuri leaned back in his chair again, closed his eyes, and grinned.

“He’s gorgeous,” he sighed. “Intelligent…warm, patient, understanding, kind. Confusing as hell sometimes. A little on the conventional side, but open to new ideas. Seems to be able to eat anything he wants without gaining weight.” He gave a small laugh and a shrug as he sat back up. “He’s…Victor.” Then his grin dropped away. “But there’s no way the two of us will ever get together, Phichit. He’ll spend some time with me here, doing this project, and then move on. I’m thanking my lucky stars I’m even getting that much. He’s virtually a celebrity; he’ll have other fish to fry before long.” While Yuuri was certain about this, and it always deflated his balloon of excitement about it all, he’d also noticed that he felt like a different person around Victor. Someone he actually liked. He wondered if he would be able to keep that, as some sort of legacy, when Victor left. “Anyway, we’ve planned a great study. And…why are you asking me all this when you came in here saying _you_ had something to tell _me_? What is it?”

Phichit beamed at him. “I’ve been asked to help with one of the cameras on the Titan rover they’re going to start building in the engineering department!”

Yuuri was instantly wide awake. “No suh!”

“Ya huh! I couldn’t _believe_ it when I heard. There’s nothing to see yet, but there will be soon. I’ll take you over there and show you.”

“Is it something for NASA?”

“Well, partially. Though some megabucks corporate guy who has more money than the GDP of an entire country is mainly funding it because he’s curious about what’s out there. Anyway, who cares? You’ve got Victor and your study, and I’ve got this. Are we on top of the world, or what?”

Yuuri just smiled. _I’d like to think so._


	8. Chapter 8

But he couldn’t be, not when Dove had disappeared like the others. After they’d sent the image of the snake and the egg, that was it. Something had happened to them. Something permanent.

Yuuri had tried on numerous occasions to contact Dove again. They’d told him that they’d played, experimented, like a child – _Let’s see what I can do. What will happen if I try this?_ It was necessary, even, since no rulebook for how to use this ability existed. And he would have enjoyed playing in that way, as if he had a wonderful new toy, if the sobering thought of that symbol and its implications hadn’t intruded.

He’d spent the latter part of the evening making one more futile attempt at contact, then considered “entering” an object the way Dove had shown him, but found himself recoiling at the prospect. It made him realize he was grieving – for someone he had known so little about, yet in ways it was impossible to know someone in ordinary life. And he was alone with it.

“I didn’t even know your name,” he said, resting his forehead in his hand as he sat on the sofa. The apartment was too quiet, he suddenly decided. But he didn’t want to read or watch anything on his chip. Music would only paper over the silence that pervaded underneath everything; blank, empty. The Friday was useless for conversation. Maybe he ought to have an early night. Though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep, and staring at the ceiling in the dark didn’t appeal. He could go for a jog, but it was late to be exercising. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to muster the energy or motivation.

His chip beeped a call. Victor.

“Yuuri,” he was greeted when he made the connection, “how are you?”

“Victor, hi. Uh…fine. Is everything OK?” It was the first time Victor had rung him at home.

“Sure. I was just wondering…would it be convenient if I came to work in the office tomorrow instead of Thursday? It’s shaping up to be a much better day for me to be away from Harvard.”

“Of course.”

“Really?” He sounded strangely pleased.

“You’re welcome any time, Victor. I’ve got a few short meetings to attend but that’s it, and you’re free to come and go when you need to, so – ”

“Great! Maybe you can show me what you’ve been doing with the tech in the lab. I’ve had some ideas about that; I’d like to help if I can.”

“Yeah…sure. That’d be good.”

“Well…great. I’ll see you – ”

“Victor, um…” _I need you to talk to me. Oh god, what do I say?_ “What have you been up to tonight?” _Jesus, what a stupid thing to blurt out._

There was a pause. “I went to a fabulous party and danced for hours. All these important people were there. They said I was a hot tip for the next Nobel Prize. Oh, and we drank champagne and ate caviar. A beautiful woman told me she wanted to marry me, though I think she’d been at the champagne. Then I tried this amazing cocktail I’d never tried before – they called it a pink tarantula.”

“Oh…and a what?” Yuuri said, hardly able to keep up. Was this how famous people like Victor spent their evenings?

“I was told to pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd.” His voice took on a nasal twang. “So I thought of you, naturally. ‘Wicked pissah,’ I said.”

Yuuri took this in. Then he snorted and started to giggle. “Were you serious about _any_ of that just now?”

Victor was giggling too. “Well…”

“Pink tarantula?”

“I had something called spider venom once. Though I don’t remember much after that.”

Yuuri giggled again. This was a new side to Victor, so different from the soft-spoken serious scientist he’d been meeting with.

“Did you believe me? Did you honestly?”

“Well how do _I_ know what you do in your spare time? For all I know – ”

“Mixing with ‘important people’ at parties is boring, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And I’m gay, so I wouldn’t be interested in a marriage proposal from a woman, no matter how beautiful.”

Yuuri just huffed a laugh.

“As for drinking and dancing at a fun party…with the right person, definitely yes.”

He seemed to be waiting for a reply. “Yeah,” was all Yuuri could think of. _Don’t leave it there. Say something._ “So…what did you really do this evening?” He made himself sound ridiculously portentous as he added, “What does the great Victor Nikiforov do with his spare time?”

This time Victor huffed a laugh. “To be honest? I hardly know anyone here. And it’s not as if the Harvard neuroscience faculty are in the habit of throwing wild parties.” His voice was growing quieter, more like the one Yuuri was used to hearing. “I do a lot of work, so there’s not much spare time to be had, but…I tinker with gadgets. I cook sometimes, so I don’t forget how. Go on jogs, listen to music. And the peak of excitement? After dinner tonight, I watched an old Russian film called _Bezymyannaya Zvezda._ Then I called you.”

_That sounds…weirdly familiar. Minus the Russian film. Don’t you have people banging down your door?_ Yuuri opened his mouth to reply, then realized he couldn’t think what to say.

“How about you, Yuuri? What kinds of things do you get up to?”

He thought briefly about making up his own outrageous spiel, then decided he wouldn’t be as good at it as Victor anyway, and the joke wouldn’t be as funny the second time around. “I do a lot of that stuff myself. Lots of cooking, actually, because I like to make my own food.”

“Really? And here’s me, suggesting we go out to eat all the time.”

“No, it’s OK. It’s nice to get out of the office.”

“I’ll bring my own lunches and we could go outside somewhere, on the campus, or to the Public Garden. Watch the swan boats. Ride on one again, even.”

Yuuri chuckled. “Sure.”

“We could even jog together sometimes, if…if you wanted to.”

Was there a hint of nervousness in Victor’s voice? “Um…yeah, why not?”

“Great…I’d better go. It’s been nice talking to you, Yuuri. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Victor. See you.”

Yuuri cut the connection and felt warmth spreading through him, in the delicious way it did when he’d had a long and moving ESP session. It didn’t seem to matter so much anymore that he was sitting by himself in a bland and silent apartment.

He fell asleep thinking about tomorrow, and knew nothing more until dawn.

***

_Top of the world, you said, Phichit. Not now, though, from the look of things._

Yuuri had walked into the office that morning to find Phichit already at his desk, sniffling and wiping at his nose with a tissue. There was a tablet in front of him, but the screen had gone dark because he hadn’t been using it.

“Hey,” Yuuri said gently, slinging his suit coat on the back of his chair.

“Hey.” He sniffled again.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Yuuri prompted him. As Phichit just sat quietly with tears streaming down his cheeks, Yuuri made peppermint and cocoa tea for them both and handed him a mug.

“Thanks,” Phichit muttered, taking a sip.

Yuuri perched on the corner of his desk. “This wouldn’t be about Aroon, would it?” Phichit nodded emphatically. “He broke up with you?” Another nod. “Oh. God, I…I’m sorry.”

“I really thought we were getting along so well, you know? But he says he’s found somebody else.”

Yuuri sat quietly, listening. He had a lot of work to get through, considering the time he would be setting aside for Victor later, but it was awful seeing Phichit in distress, and what kind of friend was he if he didn’t try to help? “That whacks. Do you want me to come over tonight? We could have something to eat; watch a movie.”

“Thanks, Yuuri, but…I don’t think I’m in the mood.”

“Do you want me to call engineering and tell them you’ve been delayed, or you’re sick?”

“No, that’s OK. Just give me a minute and I’ll get going. When’s Victor in next?”

“This morning.”

“I’ll stay out of your way.”

“Phichit…”

“No, really, it’s OK. You guys need your time alone.”

Yuuri looked at him incredulously. “Just what do you think we’re doing in here?”

“You tell me.” But there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Spatch off,” Yuuri laughed, giving his arm a prod. “And if you change your mind about wanting to do something tonight, just let me know.”

***

He always knocked politely at the door, despite having been granted access throughout the building. Yuuri smiled.

“Come in, Victor.”

“Good morning, Yuuri,” he returned brightly, hanging his charcoal-grey suit coat on a peg next to the door.

“No after-effects from the champagne or pink tarantula, then?”

“Strangely, no. You’re looking chipper yourself.”

“Well, you know, this herbal tea’s pretty strong stuff, but I seem to have developed an amazing tolerance to it. Do you want a drink?”

“I’ll make some coffee; you don’t have to get up.”

Yuuri sat with his arms crossed, watching him. Then he realized he’d left a long silence. “How’s, uh, the research going on the lit review, then?”

Yuuri couldn’t help feeling that he’d missed a beat somehow by launching straight into business, but what else was there to say? They caught up with the work each had done since they’d last met, agreed to go down to the lab later, and sat at their respective desks, researching over their chips and mentally writing the information up. Yuuri was conscious, as he always was, of Victor’s presence at the other desk; wanting to talk with him but unsure of what to say; knowing he needed to get to work – that they both did. It created a perpetual tug of frustration inside of him that made it difficult to concentrate; and yet he was glad Victor was there.

“Did you know the DSM-IV listed something called Dissociative Trance Disorder in 1994?” Victor said, staring ahead as he read.

“Yes, but the criteria were that it was involuntary, created stress or impairment to the individual, and wasn’t part of a culturally or religiously accepted practice,” Yuuri replied, looking over at him. “Anyway, it was subsumed back into the dissociative disorders in 2025. So if you’re worried that people won’t accept that there’s any difference in the first place between a trance state and psychosis, that’s one obstacle out the window.”

Victor quirked a smile at him. “Very rigorous. You’ve done your homework.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to reply when his chip beeped a call. “Shit, it’s my father,” he said, feeling a dart of panic. _He’s calling from Oxford right now…why?_ “Um…”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No, no – we’ll be talking in Japanese anyway. But I can go into the hall – ”

“Here, I’ll switch my translator off. I won’t understand a word, and I can carry on working without any problem, unless you’d rather be alone – ”

“No, that’s fine. OK.” Yuuri took a deep breath and answered. _“Otou-sama. Mondai ga arimasu ka?”_

Yes, there was a problem. And his father told him all about it, in no uncertain terms. The Stanford presentation was several months in the past now, but Yuuri began to wonder if it would end up haunting him for the rest of his life. It seemed some old colleagues of Toshiya’s at Harvard had heard from someone who had attended the conference that an Oxford professor had torn him off a strip. For a mathematical error. A dishonor not only for his family, but Toshiya personally. Did Yuuri think he lived just to be mocked with stories of his son’s failures? When was he going to grow up and show the world what a genius he supposedly was? What had he been doing at MIT all these years, counting beads on an abacus? It sounded like that was about all he could handle.

Yuuri closed his eyes, rested his forehead in his hand, and let it wash over him with barely a word in response. He was used to it; and being halfway across the world, he could pretend most of the time that his family didn’t actually exist – that he’d cut them out of his life as neatly and easily as taking scissors to a piece of paper. The resulting hole was preferable to this. There was no changing what had happened in the past, of course, but at least the present and the future could be his to shape. He didn’t know why he even took their calls anymore. Some lingering sense of obligation, perhaps; or the stuttering flame of a childhood desire for connection that had never quite died, despite years of evidence that it was a foolish hope he ought to smother for good.

But…this was happening in front of _Victor._ Of all times and places. Yuuri issued the formal apologies that he knew the situation required, hoping to mollify his father quickly and get him off the phone. He did not ask after his mother and sister. Did not wish him well or tell him he hoped to hear from him soon. At an opportune moment, he simply said goodbye and severed the connection, then choked back a noise in his throat and looked down at his desk. Surely Victor’s eyes were on him; he could feel them burn. When the silence carried on for some moments, he ran a hand through his hair, sat back, and looked across. Victor was sitting nonchalantly, staring ahead at the visual field of his chip, allowing Yuuri to mind his own business. Or at least, that was how he wanted it to appear. There was something slightly tense and vigilant about his pose; the way he held one leg crossed over the other, the rather determined way he was attempting to look like he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. It lightened Yuuri’s heart somewhat, and he sighed.

“That, um…didn’t sound like good news,” Victor said quietly, continuing to gaze ahead. But then he blinked and looked at Yuuri.

“No…no, it wasn’t. My father…he’s not very happy. Seems someone told him about my botched presentation at the conference. That was him giving me his opinion about it.”

Victor continued to look at him. Sometimes Yuuri thought a man could drown in the intensity of the spell those eyes cast. They were so…blue. The name of the color could have been invented just to pin a label on what they were, though it didn’t do them justice.

“How about getting out of the office for a while? We could take our lunches and go to the park. I liked it there. It’s a nice day.”

Yuuri was about to answer that he didn’t feel up to it and wasn’t hungry, then stopped himself. He remembered telling Victor over their call that he made most of his own meals, and Victor sounding abashed that he ordered in so much, then promising he’d bring his own, too. He’d actually _listened_ , and been true to his word, like it had really mattered to him.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Yuuri said with a quick smile, and grabbed his carryall.

Overnight spring rains for the past few weeks had softened the earth, and muddy tracks were sunk into the paths between gleaming swatches of lush grass. The river glittered blue in the sunlight as they approached the bridge, Yuuri having selected the newer one to the south to cross for a change. He took off his suit coat as they walked and slung it over an arm, the white sunlight warm on his face. Victor did the same.

“What’s a smoot?” Victor asked, eyeing a plaque on the bridge.

Yuuri huffed and shook his head. “Something else that gets Boston an entry into the ‘curious facts’ book, I guess you could say. It was a famous hack in the 1950s – a prank, in plank-speak. Smoot was a student, and they supposedly measured the length of the bridge by his height.”

“Three hundred and sixty-four point four smoots. Plus or minus one ear.” Victor chuckled. “That’s my favorite bit. You always have to leave room for uncertainty.”

“Yeah. So this is the only place in the world where you’ll find something measured in smoots. You’ve learned something today.”

“I’m learning new things all the time here,” Victor laughed, looking at Yuuri. They fell silent again as they reached the end of the bridge and walked along the Esplanade. “I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about the call you took in the office. Up to you, of course, but…” That serious gaze again. “…it seemed to upset you.”

Yuuri sighed. Here in this beautiful place, with Victor, the edge to the hurt had evaporated. Why not tell him a little about himself? Yuuri usually assumed people wouldn’t be interested, but that wasn’t the feeling he got from the man walking next to him. It was just that the first fact to tell was the hardest.

“My father is a professor of mathematics, currently at the University of Oxford.” He waited for the inevitable surprise to cross Victor’s face, which it did, and then continued. “His first job in the U.S. was at Stanford, so he brought the family there when I was young. We moved around a few times after that – Detroit, Chicago, then here to Boston, where he was at Harvard for a while. So with all his connections, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to tell him what happened at the presentation I gave. He’s brilliant, but…people find him hard to work with.” He shrugged, noticing that Victor was watching him keenly as they walked. “He’s written some popular books – _Cracking the Riemann Hypothesis, Dividing Infinity._ Well, popular if you like numbers, I guess. Dr. Toshiya Katsuki?”

Victor shook his head, and Yuuri laughed mirthlessly. “He’d be offended you’ve never heard of him. Reputation is everything, as far as he’s concerned.”

“I see,” Victor said gently.

“He thought it was great that I originally wanted to study quantum mechanics.”

“Really? That’s what you wanted to do?”

“I thought that was…where the most interesting answers were. But I couldn’t do the math. It would’ve held me back just a little.” He chuckled.

“I guess it’s lucky we got you in the field of neuroscience instead, then.”

Yuuri shook off the ridiculous praise. “My mom’s a homemaker and my sister’s an internationally renowned cellist. And with my early test results, I guess you could say expectations were high for me, too. My father was disappointed when I chose MIT over Caltech; he calls MIT a trade school. They all think I ought to be famous by now – a Nobel laureate twice over or something.” He kicked at a small clod of mud on the path, which bounced into the grass.

“You shouldn’t downplay your accomplishments, Yuuri. And you’re at the beginning of your career. You’re young yet. There’s so much you could do.”

Yuuri just shrugged and looked into the distance, watching the sailboats on the river. “He’s right, though. I’m an embarrassment. I mess things up. It’s hard just to face teaching a dozen grad students. Can you believe that?”

“Is that what he said to you?” Victor stopped, and so did Yuuri, though he didn’t meet his gaze. “We may have only known each other a few weeks, but I think I can categorically say that’s completely wrong. You shouldn’t listen to him.”

Yuuri crossed his arms, flicking his glance up at Victor briefly, his cheeks pinking. “Uh…thanks.”

Victor grinned at him and placed a hand on his back briefly to guide him along the path. “There’s the garden – want to find a bench?”

“Sure.”

They made their way over to the lagoon, where they could sit and watch the swan boats, and Yuuri sat down on a long wooden bench without a back, Victor next to him. It was impossible, Yuuri found, to move his arm without brushing against him, but he didn’t want to be rude by scooting away, and…he had to admit that it was nice, if distracting. Victor was wearing a cream-colored shirt today, the top button undone as he seemed to like it, and the sunlight glinted in his hair.

“I threw what I had in the fridge together into a sandwich,” Victor said, unzipping his canvas bag and pulling it out. “I’ll have to put some more thought into it from now on. Do cream cheese, bacon and red onion chutney go together, do you think?”

Yuuri smiled despite himself. “It’s…unusual, I guess, but sounds good, actually.” He took a glass container out of his carryall and removed the lid.

“What have you got, then?”

“Lettuce wraps with Chinese pork and vegetables.” Yuuri picked one up. “Want to try one?”

“OK…if that still leaves enough for you to eat.” He accepted the one Yuuri handed to him, bit into it, and declared, “ _Vkusno_. You made these yourself?”

“Yeah.” Yuuri just watched him, what remained of his appetite deserting him as he did so. _Are you for real?_ he thought, his heart floating while he took shallow breaths. That Russian word he kept using; it was endearing. If he said it one more time, Yuuri decided, he would not be responsible for his actions, even if it meant offending Victor enough that he got up to leave and never return. Actually, scratch that – it was too much of a nightmare prospect even to toy with in his thoughts like this. He was just drunk on endorphins again; he didn’t need his biochem monitor to tell him that.   

Victor finished the wrap, then took a bite of his sandwich. “My own family’s still in St. Petersburg,” he said. “I’m not sure about this sandwich, you know; it’s a bit weird. Anyway, my father has his own business.”

“Doesn’t he design tech?” Yuuri offered, giving up on the task of trying to eat after one wrap and putting the rest back in his carryall, then sipping from a glass water bottle. “I mean, I…might have read somewhere that – ”

Victor brightened. “Yes, he does. He even designed some of the tech I use for my job; I’ll have to show you. He’s got a small shop attached to a workshop, though he takes commissions from lots of different clients too, labs and businesses and so on. The Russian space agency has even contacted him a few times. If you think my office at Harvard is like Aladdin’s cave, you should see where he works.”

“Wow, it sounds amazing.”

Victor’s eyes followed a swan boat gliding through the water in front of them. “I spent hours watching him when I was young, or tinkering myself. He was a very busy person – still is – so…it was either that, or we didn’t see him much. But I didn’t mind,” he added. “After all, most of what I know about tech, I learned there. I guess I was lucky.”

Yuuri thought about this. “Was your mom around?”

“She, ah, died when I was ten, so no.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, mortified that he’d taken the conversation into such delicate territory.

“Well, I don’t remember much about her. It was Anna – that’s my little sister – and me, mostly, and then…” He paused and looked down, fiddling with the strap of his bag, having finished his sandwich. “She got sick, Yuuri. For a long time. But she’s better now. She works in a lawyer’s office.”

“I didn’t know you had a younger sister.”

“Five years. I guess you could say I always felt responsible for her.”

“Do you get back to see them much?”

“I try to make it once a year at least, but it isn’t easy. Things get busy.”

“Yeah, I know about that.”

The boat was gliding away, under the suspension bridge in the distance. Victor was still watching it. “I tried bringing my poodle Makkachin here with me years ago. She used to be in the workshop with me every day back home. But I couldn’t take her to work with me, and it didn’t seem fair to see her as seldom as I did, so I had to take her back to Russia and leave her with my dad. She’s getting old now, though; I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to see her.”

“We had a dog, too. I didn’t get to see him much when I came here, and now he’s gone. Pet policies in this country whack. Phichit was right; I ought to have one. But I don’t know what it’d do all day while I was at work.”

“I have an idea,” Victor said with a laugh. “We could design a study that looks at dogs’ brains. We could keep designing them, one after the other. And then they’d have to allow us to bring them to work with us.”

Yuuri guffawed. “You know, I never thought of that. You might be onto something.”

“How about a ride on a swan boat before we go back?”

Yuuri’s smile faded into a warm grin. “I’ll have to take a rain check, I think. I’ve got to see some students this afternoon.”

“A rain check, then. I’ll hold you to that.”


	9. Chapter 9

As Victor crossed the black-and-white tiled hall floor of the apartment complex and began climbing the stairs, he could already hear the reverberations of Chris’s shack music. The building was over a hundred years old, with wood and bare plaster that amplified sound, and therefore pure silence was a rare commodity. He half-wondered if Chris were having a party in there, though it was unlikely on a Saturday morning.

The Friday let him in through the black-painted wooden door and he put his suitcase down, looking around. The room was empty, his footfalls sounding firmly against the polished wood floor as he made his way to the kitchen and took a peek in the fridge. The overstuffed furniture, with a cream-colored fabric displaying Jacobean prints of exotic flowers – Chris’s taste in design – absorbed some of the noise at least. The Glove Puppets, that was the name of the band. How irritating.

“Coco, turn the music down. Way down,” he told the Friday, and she wordlessly obliged. “Thank you, that’s much better.”

“Hey, what…oh hi, Victor. Sorry about that.” Chris was wearing a pair of purple silk pajama bottoms and nothing else as he joined Victor in the kitchen and grabbed a small carton of orange juice from the fridge, then went into the living area and was swallowed by a chair. “When did you get in?”

“Just now, but I won’t be here long; I’ve got to go over to Columbia. You’re going to go deaf, listening to music that loud. Or be killed by the neighbors first.”

“No skin off my back.”

Slightly younger than Victor, his mostly erstwhile roommate was blond, green-eyed and good-looking, and knew it. Being an actor, he kept strange hours, and Victor was never sure when he would be around. And mostly erstwhile because, though Columbia still paid Victor’s share of the rent, he only came to stay a few weekends a month now, since he had shifted his base of operations to Harvard. And MIT.

“Do you have time to sit down for a minute and tell your old amigo what you’ve been up to? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hm.” Victor took a carton of juice for himself and came to sit on the sofa nearby. The ornate wooden ceiling fan was on, adding a droning hum to the music that was still playing softly, even though it wasn’t a hot day and they had air conditioning. Chris liked fans. “Well, the study’s coming along. Yuuri’s recruiting volunteers. Harvard’s keeping me busy. I hardly have time to come back here, but I can’t stop what I’m doing at Columbia; it’s too important.”

“Now Victor, you’re telling me everything and nothing at the same time. I’ve asked you before, but I’m gonna ask again – why suddenly drop everything you had going for you here to move over there? Is the grass greener on the other side or something?” He sipped his juice from a straw and stared at him good-naturedly. Inquisitive by nature, Chris was tenacious when he pursued a piece of juicy gossip. Well, Victor had been hoping he might have some available by now, though things were not quite turning out as he’d expected.

“Lots of reasons,” he hedged. “And it’s nice going somewhere new. Have you ever been to Cambridge? It’s lovely.”

“You went cause it’s lovely? Or…does ‘lovely’ describe a certain someone there?”

Victor’s cheeks pinked and he grinned but remained quiet.

“This scientist you’re working with…Yuuri Katsuki, isn’t it? He’s something special, is he?”

“Yes, he is.”

“How?”

“Am I on a gameshow and didn’t realize? What’s with all the questions?” Victor laughed.

Chris shrugged. “Just wondering what a bo did to get you to up stakes like that and go all the way over there. He some kind of rising superstar in science, or is it more…personal?”

“A bit of both, I guess,” Victor said after a pause.

“Oh come on now. You’ve always told me about the bos you’ve been with, and haven’t I done the same? What’s he like?”

“I haven’t ‘been with’ him in that sense, Chris.”

“I can tell you’re into him, though. In a big way.”

“There’s no law against that.”

“Sheesh, jack, you’re a big mystery today.” Chris’s eyes took on a faraway look and he stood up. “Important call. I’ll just take it in my room; back in a sec.” With that, he hustled off.

Victor cupped his juice box in both hands and sank back into the sofa with a sigh.

Yuuri…what a puzzle. What a sweet, tantalizing, frustrating, exciting conundrum. Every time Victor tried to work it out, it was as if Yuuri kept himself hidden behind some opaque screen, giving him glimpses of what was behind that could be real or misconstrued, because he never got more than a piece of the overall picture. Those big brown eyes, so full of life – and secrets, he was sure.

Such as why, for example, he had so deliberately given Victor the impression, after the presentation in Stanford was over and they were at the banquet, that he wanted him. Then nothing but silence from him, the implication being that he had perhaps changed his mind, until he put that video up on the Cloud, explaining the adaptations he’d made to Victor’s own TMS harmonizer. Surely there could be no more obvious homage to someone, like a group doing a cover version of a song they loved. It was very clever, what he’d done. Victor had been impressed. And he’d followed what he thought had been a second siren call.

He’d even had a wry grin on his face when he’d wrapped himself up like an elegant present, wondering with butterflies of anticipation how he would be received.

_Why Victor, fancy meeting you here. I’m so flattered. We must get to know each other better._

_So you saw my video? I was hoping you would. Come here and let me say a proper hello._

_Look at you, in that suit. God you’re hot. Take me right now._

What he’d discovered instead was someone who ran away to hide behind his desk, a look of horror on his face, when Victor had showed up. As Yuuri had essentially asked him to do. 

That had been unexpected. Disconcerting. Upsetting. Crushing, actually. Yuuri had obviously had second thoughts about the whole thing. But Victor had already made his dramatic – and now faintly ridiculous – move. He was in Cambridge, and had offered to be Yuuri’s research partner. He couldn’t just turn around and say it had been a mistake.

Besides, Victor had been honest about his respect for Yuuri’s work. He was an underappreciated, promising bright spark who unfortunately was very hesitant about putting himself out there in the scientific world, for reasons that had become clear. It was only unfortunate, though, in the sense that he wasn’t receiving the recognition he deserved. And Victor _did_ want to work with him. Even if Yuuri sent bewildering signals about other more intimate things he did or did not want.

Well, perhaps there was yet a chance, Victor had decided. If they went through with this study, then over time maybe they could develop a deeper relationship as well, and Yuuri would be able to work through whatever reservations had sprung up on his part. In the meantime, regardless of what they were to each other, Victor still wanted to get to know him. He seemed like a “still waters run deep” kind of person, which was intriguing. And it would be fun to make gentle attempts to pry him out of his shell; tease out what treasures lay inside.

He’d already found some. Yuuri was certainly more reserved as a rule than he’d been at the banquet; that had no doubt been the alcohol at the time. But it wasn’t a bad thing…just different. His mind was razor-sharp. He was devoted to his work; driven to find answers to complex questions. And funny, when he let his guard down a bit.

The loveliest thing of all, though, was that Victor was discovering he really _liked_ Yuuri Katsuki. A lot. Maybe it was just as well they hadn’t leapt straight into anything physical, because that in itself was delightful – as well as necessary, of course, if he were to hold on to any hope of something more developing between them.

And he sensed a real passion lurking within Yuuri. It was like his whole essence blazed with it. Victor felt drawn in; couldn’t look away. You’d never know, from the quiet surface: his soft voice; the way he dressed like he wanted people to look past him. _You don’t fool me, Yuuri. I wonder what other ways there are to coax out that fire inside you._

“Sorry about that,” came Chris’s voice, and then he was back in his chair, dressed this time in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. “So…this bo. You say you two are doing a study together?”

“Well, yes,” Victor said, putting his empty juice box on the coffee table. “Though I’m beginning to wonder if experiencing the way Yuuri approaches it will be more interesting in the end than the actual results. His ideas are a little…unconventional. I’ve warned him that if they go too far in that direction, no one will take the research seriously or be willing to fund it. But he defends them like the champion of the underdog.” He laughed. “And he’s so hungry for knowledge; for answers. You know, it’s inspiring. I, um…accomplished some of the things I set out to do early in my career, and haven’t felt like that myself in a while. Maybe this project is actually what I need to revitalize myself.” He gave Chris a bright smile.

“Wow. I was gonna ask you if you thought you’d done the right thing by going over there. But I don’t have to; the answer’s written all over your face.”

“That obvious, eh?”

“No matter how you wrap it up scientifically – you, my amigo, are smitten.”

***

Victor really did enjoy working in what they came to refer to as their “nook” in the atrium. Once he got Yuuri to tell him that the Cloud was able to project brain holograms there, they could work there more regularly; and the trailers outside were handy for getting a quick cup of coffee. Even better, Victor found he could sit next to Yuuri on one of the sofas while they were looking at a hologram, and he didn’t seem to mind. No more staring at each other with a whole table between them. Sure it could be distracting, but he could handle that and be a professional at the same time.

They spent one morning together in the lab, making last-minute adjustments to the tech they planned to use for the study, when Victor noticed a favorite game tucked away on a shelf. A handful of other faculty members had been on their coffee break at the time, talking in a group, and Victor joined them while Yuuri continued to work. He recognized one as Dr. Bayar, Yuuri’s companion at Stanford.

“Dr. Nikiforov – ” he began.

“Victor.”

“Ah. Yes. I was wondering if you’d be…if you’d honor myself and my colleague sometime – perhaps this week? – with your opinion on an aspect of our study on brain plasticity. We have the privilege of being able to access a most unusual subject. She – ”

“I’d love to, Doctor. But right now, I’m wondering…do any of you play?” He gestured toward the game box; it said “Brainquake.”

The five scientists admitted they did, and occasionally had tournaments. “But it’s a primitive device,” Dr. Bayar said derisively.

“You only say that because you don’t win,” his colleague laughed.

“Have we got time to play? Now?” Victor asked.

“Sure, it only takes a few minutes,” said a young Chinese woman standing with them.

“I’ll just ask Yuuri.” He turned and was about to call over when she lightly laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

“No – he never plays,” she said simply.

“What? Why not?”

“Because he always wins.”

“Always?”

“No lie,” said Dr. Bayar. “No one can beat him. It wasn’t fun to try anymore. It isn’t even a challenge for him, anyway.”

Victor laughed. “All right. Why don’t we play among ourselves, and the winner plays Yuuri?”

“They’ll lose,” the woman said.

The matter-of-fact way in which they spoke about this was odd. Surely no one could be such a champion at a game that was basically just a mental tug-of-war, where each opponent concentrated on trying to force a light between them to change a certain color. This was too intriguing an opportunity to pass up.

They cleared the paraphernalia away from a work space, set up the simple game, and made a start, one pair playing while the other four sipped at drinks or snacked and watched. Victor glanced over at Yuuri several times, but he was either oblivious to what was happening or ignoring it, sitting in a chair and gazing at an MRI screen with intense concentration.

Victor had played this game many times, and often won, though not without a few challenges. They were nice people, these scientists, and not averse to having some fun. Victor scheduled a meeting with Dr. Bayar, and said they were welcome to get back to whatever they needed to be doing.

“Oh no, not yet,” the Chinese woman, whose name he had discovered was Dr. Chen Li, said with a hint of amusement in her voice. “We’re going to watch you get your ass whupped.”

“I beg to differ.” He stood and called, “Yuuri, how about a game of Brainquake?”

Yuuri stood and slowly turned around, looking as if this was the last thing he wanted to do, which seemed strange if he was so good at it. “You won, did you?”

“I did. They say you’re really good at this. Well, how about proving it?”

He sighed and joined them. “Do I have to?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“You’ll lose.” That same matter-of-fact tone that everyone else had used.

“You seem very sure.”

“Go on, show him,” chuckled Dr. Bayar. “On second thought, maybe you should go easy on him. He is an esteemed guest, after all.”

“Oh no, Yuuri,” Victor insisted. “Show me what you can do.”

Yuuri sat down quietly across from Victor, with an expression that said he wanted to disappear. Victor felt a twinge of guilt at this but was struggling to imagine what the problem could be.

“Just to clarify, then,” Dr. Bayar said. “By placing the mind in a state of relaxation, Yuuri will try to turn the white light blue, and Victor will try to turn it red. Shades of purple don’t count; the color has to be clear. Ready? On the count of three: one, two – three.”

The light instantly turned a brilliant shade of blue. Five scientists laughed. Yuuri continued to sit without comment. Victor held a hand up.

“I mustn’t have been ready,” he said. “Can we try again?”

Yuuri nodded. Dr. Bayar counted to three. The light turned blue. Victor gave Yuuri a look of exaggerated – but only a little – astonishment, while the others walked away chuckling, after thanking Victor for the entertainment.

“You said not to go easy on you,” Yuuri muttered, looking down at the table.

“I guess so,” Victor said, feeling a slight wound in his pride, though he knew it was petty. He put the light back in the box. “So…how did you get so good at this?”

“Lots of practice,” Yuuri said with a shrug.

“ _I’ve_ had lots of practice, but you beat me like I wasn’t even here. How did you do that?”

Yuuri thought for a moment, then said as he stood up, “Well, you know, working with brainwaves as I do, I suppose I ended up getting good at controlling my own.”

“But I do the same – ”

“Would you mind taking a look at the MRI machine with me over there? I’m having a hard time getting it to work manually for someone without a chip. I was thinking we might need to feed some wires into it, you know, like they were doing thirty years back.”

It wasn’t the most skilful change of subject, but Victor could see that Yuuri felt uncomfortable about what had just occurred. Most people Victor knew would be entering tournaments and winning money if they had Yuuri’s ability. But then, Yuuri was turning out to be someone rather unique.

***

Victor decided that food and drink could be added to the seemingly endless mix of contradictions that was Yuuri. He had some…different attitudes towards them; which shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise, Victor supposed, since one of his specialisms was nutritional neuroscience. But his interest appeared to extend beyond that to something more personal, and yet there were no clues as to why. He didn’t like to ask about such matters up front, especially not with someone as skittish as Yuuri could sometimes be.

Victor made drinks for them in the office one day. “Peppermint and cocoa tea,” he said, placing Yuuri’s Red Sox mug on the desk in front of him. “With a splash of cold water.”

“Thank you.” Yuuri had been lounging back in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk, staring at the ceiling while he accessed his chip. It was a shame to watch him break the beautiful toned lines of his body to sit up and drink his tea. Victor wondered if he was aware of just how attractive he was and how distracting it could be.

_I can handle it,_ he reminded himself, then thought of exactly what he _would_ like to handle, and decided it had been a poor choice of words. He also found himself idly wondering at times what it would be like to kiss Yuuri after he’d been drinking these various herbal teas of his, and thought they would all make a delectable experience. Though it would be that anyway, he was sure, tea or no tea. Certainly nicer than the heavy coffee breath he was no doubt giving himself.

_He hasn’t even given me any hints that he’s interested. If I do anything to scare him off, I’ll never forgive myself._

He poured coffee into his own mug, which had a cartoon poodle on it, and liberally added milk and a few spoonfuls of sugar. Yuuri was watching him.

“Everything is extra with your coffee, isn’t it?” he laughed. “Extra-strong, with extra milk and sugar. I wonder what the physiological effects are. Do you mind if I get the biochem monitor out?”

“Go on then,” Victor said as he sat back down at his desk. “Why not – let’s see what it says.”

“OK, I’ll take a reading now.” Yuuri waved the scanner briefly at him. “For a baseline. Then after you’ve finished your coffee.”

Once Victor had done so, he stood to put his mug in the sink and looked inside a gold-colored tin that contained cookies. Yuuri came over with the biochem monitor, reminding Victor almost comically of a hovering MD anxious to check his patient.

“What’s it saying?”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow in concentration. “Lots of caffeine, though your baseline reading was high too. No surprise there, though, because you drink a lot of coffee. Oh, and all that sugar has spiked your insulin levels. It’s worse, of course, if you’re having it on an empty stomach. Best to eat something with a low glycemic index beforehand or alongside.”

Victor turned to face Yuuri, leaning against the counter. He looked down at the monitor with a frown, though he couldn’t see what was on the screen, and it was upside down from his point of view anyway. “I’m not diabetic.”

“Doesn’t matter. Too much caffeine and sugar stress the body.” He shrugged. “I’m not, er, trying to preach or anything. It’s just a fact.”

Victor inched forward. “Can I see?” he asked quietly, brushing his hand not-quite-accidentally over Yuuri’s as he reached for the monitor he was holding, watching Yuuri while he did so.

“Um, sure,” Yuuri said, releasing it into his grasp, his eyes darting. At least he didn’t move away.

He was right; these weren’t the healthiest readings. But surely a nip of caffeine and sugar never hurt anyone. He opened the cookie tin. “Want one?” he asked a little brazenly, considering what the biochem monitor had just said, and selected a gingersnap.

“Those are Phichit’s, though he won’t mind if you have one,” Yuuri said, taking the monitor back. Now he leaned on the counter himself with a small smirk. “The stuff he buys is usually cheap and disgusting, so it doesn’t temp – I mean, I wouldn’t want to have it myself. I wouldn’t advise anyone to.”

“Why not?” Victor asked, taking a slow, deliberate bite as he continued to hold Yuuri’s eyes. Though he was right again; he’d certainly tasted better. On top of that, it was probably on the stale side, if he was any judge. But he’d put up with it for the sake of flustering Yuuri a little. Truthfully, he was a little flustered himself, as he examined the way Yuuri’s bangs carelessly framed his forehead. Those big beautiful eyes. Cheeks that stained pink so easily. Lips to match. They looked so soft.

“Oh come on, Victor. Have you read the list of ingredients in this stuff?”

Victor jerked out of his reverie and eyed the cookie dubiously for a moment, then took another bite. “Well, it’s not homemade, but – ”

“So that means, if it came cheap off a supermarket shelf, that it probably contains hydrogenated fat, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and some kind of unidentified vegetable oil high in omega-six fat. Basically nothing in there is good for you.”

There was a gentle expression on Yuuri’s face, reminiscent of a friend giving well-meant advice. His smirk grew by degrees as Victor kept nibbling the cookie in small painstaking bites while Yuuri rattled off every reason why he shouldn’t.

“Your paper, of course,” Victor said. “About omega-three fatty acids. Can you get cookies with that in them?”

Yuuri laughed heartily. “Fish-oil cookies? _Bon appetit_.” When Victor laughed as well, Yuuri added, “I know you know more than you’re letting on. You’re teasing me.”

Victor’s laughter died to a chuckle. _You’ve called me out on it, then._ “Maybe a bit.” This time when he held Yuuri’s eyes, there was a sparkle in their brown depths, and Victor felt his heart give a flutter. _Oh Yuuri. I wish I could just reach out and hold you. Do you have any clue how difficult this is? If you really aren’t interested…if you did change your mind…how can I know, especially when you look at me like that?_

“What _do_ you like when you want to treat yourself? Victor asked him, finishing off his cookie.

“Well…I guess if I’m going to have sweet food, I want it to count for something; I want it to be really nice. Something homemade preferably, that has decent ingredients, including some that’ll lower the glycemic index so I don’t get a blood-sugar spike and crash. Things that are creamy, buttery, chocolatey. Decadent, I guess you’d call them.”

Victor was hypnotized by the expression on his face. It would hardly be different, he thought, if someone were describing their favorite sex act.

“So I don’t have stuff like that very often,” Yuuri concluded.

***

The next time they spent a chunk of the morning in the office together, Victor came in with a paper bag that he put on the counter near the sink.

“Victor, I’ve got our first subject coming in at – what’s that?” Yuuri asked, looking at the bag. As was his habit, seemingly, he’d been reclining in his chair, his feet resting on his desk, white shirtsleeves rolled up. Now he was sitting up straight, looking at Victor curiously.

“What, this? Oh, just a little something I picked up on the way here from a Russian bakery. You and Phichit are so generous with sharing your tea and snacks, I thought I’d contribute. Nothing special.” He removed a white cardboard box from the bag. “Though seeing as how I’ve arrived just at coffee time, I might have a bite before I get down to work.” He opened the box and carefully reached in to pull out a cake on a cardboard circle. It was covered in cream, with chocolate drizzled over the top, and sprinkled with chocolate flakes. “Now. You have plates and cutlery here, don’t you? Ah yes, down here.” He opened the cabinet under the sink and took out a white ceramic plate. “I don’t suppose you want to try some…?”

Yuuri’s eyes were wide as he got out of his chair and joined Victor at the counter. “What…is _that_?”

Victor smiled at the astonishment on his face. “Chocolate Spartak cake. Eight layers of…decadence.” He looked at Yuuri knowingly. “I don’t suppose I could tempt you with a small piece?”

“Well…just this once, maybe.” He pulled a large knife from the sink drawer. “What’s in it?”

Victor got out a second plate and then two forks. “Chocolate and cream. Not too rich for you, I hope.”

“I doubt it. Here,” he said, handing Victor the knife. It sank through the soft layers once, twice. Then he pulled the piece away with his fork and placed it carefully on a plate.

“Oh my god,” Yuuri practically moaned as he stared at it.

“Yours. Enjoy.” Victor cut himself a piece and was about to sit down at his desk, then asked himself why he would do such a silly thing when he could stand here and watch Yuuri close up.

Yuuri looked at it for a moment like it was some work of art that he didn’t dare touch. Then he delicately gripped his fork and sliced through the tip of the triangle, lifting the bite up to his lips and taking it into his mouth. Victor stared out of the corner of his eye while picking at his own piece of cake, but felt himself coming undone as Yuuri closed his eyes, sighed, and actually did moan this time.

“Victor, this is incredible. I’d never even heard of this kind of cake before. Wow.” He took another bite, savoring it, eyes closed again.

The word “foodgasm” was invented for moments like this, Victor decided. He had dropped all pretense of doing anything other than watching Yuuri in fascination, heat radiating up his spine.

“Aren’t you going to eat yours?” Yuuri asked.

“Um.” Victor eyed it, that particular appetite having suddenly evaporated. What he wanted to do with his mouth just now didn’t exactly involve filling it with chocolate and cream. “Sure.” He poked his piece of cake with his fork.

“You know I can’t eat things like this too often. But it was kind of you to bring it. Thank you.”

“Any time, Yuuri. Really, it’s my pleasure.”   


	10. Chapter 10

“Victor, I’m glad you could come at such short notice.”

Adam sat down close to him on the curved seat in the corner of the bar. Through the window, the neon lights on the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 114th spilled pink and blue onto the black-haired man’s face, garishly bright like a young child’s toy. Victor couldn’t remember seeing such shadows in his eyes or the hollows of his cheeks the last time they’d met, though truth be told he was struggling to remember exactly when that was.

“It’s always nice to catch up with an old colleague,” Victor said politely. “Thanks for the beer.” It wasn’t what he would have chosen if there’d been a better selection on draft, but then this bar wasn’t his scene either. Still, when Adam had called him from out of the blue today, both of them being in New York, Victor had seen no reason to say no. It was someone to talk to for a while.

“Good to see you too. It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”

His dark clothes shaded him into the depths of the corner. Victor himself was wearing a gray sweater with a neutral geometric pattern of triangles down the front; the only casual clothes he’d brought with him for the weekend.

“Didn’t you, ah…go to work out west somewhere? Kansas City?” he said.

“Oklahoma City.”

“Ah. Close.”

“Columbia wanted me back here for a while.” He took a pull of his beer. “Seems you’ve decided to do some branching out yourself, eh?”

Victor looked down at the wooden table covered in water rings from countless mugs, grinning to himself. “I’m based at Harvard for the moment, yes. But obviously I’m not going to stop doing what I do here.”

“Good,” Adam said, looking intently at him. “They need you.”

“I know.”

“So what exactly are you up to over there at Harvard? You’ve been at MIT too, haven’t you?”

He briefly summarized the work he was doing, then sipped his bland beer, wondering if he could be bothered to finish the rest of it.

“I’ve heard you’ve got a research assistant at MIT – a Japanese prodigy?”

“Yuuri, yes.”

“You haven’t collaborated with him before.”

“No. I thought it was time I put that right.” He was beginning to feel uncomfortable with all the questions and slanted a look over at his companion. “Is it that interesting? What we’re studying is a little specialized.”

“I know some people who’d be _very_ interested to hear about your findings regarding the shamans, believe it or not.”

“Really?”

“Really. You should get in touch when you have some results.”

“All right.”

There was a silence, which Adam eventually broke, his deep voice taking on a softer note. “Victor…” He ran a finger up and down the condensation on his beer glass. “…that’s not the only reason I wanted to see you.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, it’s just…nice to see you again. You were always good company.”

Victor looked at him but remained silent.

“I…could use some good company at the moment. I didn’t know how to say it before, I guess I was kind of shy, but…you’re very attractive.”

The words twisted coldly into Victor’s stomach. He didn’t like the way Adam’s hazel eyes were flashing at him; there was something disconcerting in the way they glittered that belied a request for a simple hook-up or whatever it was he was after. Victor had never known him well – had certainly never suspected he was gay – and it was the last thing he wanted to pursue now. Coming here was a mistake; he’d had a sense of it beforehand, and should have paid attention.

“Adam, that’s…um, flattering, but – ”

“But you’re not interested.” He gave Victor a sheepish smile. “It’s OK; I guess I wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“It’s just that – ”

“Really, Victor, it’s fine. Please, forget I said anything.”

***

“He said what?” Chris echoed.

“That I’m very attractive,” Victor repeated through a mouthful of pizza. They were standing at the kitchen counter, sharing one that oozed cheese and pepperoni, which filled the apartment with its pungent smell. “Hey, don’t look so surprised. Why should it be surprising that someone said that to me, hm?”

“Maybe I’m just finding it tragically amusing that the one person you _want_ to say that to you hasn’t done it yet. Am I right?”

“He hasn’t,” Victor admitted, reaching for another slice of pizza. “But I’m working on that. He will.” He paused in thought. “Though not those exact words. Something more like…” He chewed and looked at the ceiling. “…I want you, Victor. Oh yes, that’s more like it.”

Chris shook his head. “I’ve got a lovesick gonk for a roommate. But seriously…isn’t it kind of skewed that this jack suddenly turns up and tries to rope you for a steer, when you hardly know him? And on top of it, he’s asking you all these questions?”

“Like you don’t?”

“ _I’ve_ got your best interests at heart, you know that. And hearing about the drama in your life is keeping me entertained while my agent finds me my next job.”

“I’m glad I’m so amusing, then. Anyway, maybe people at Columbia are talking. I’m pretty well known in my field. They get curious.”

“Sounds like it’s more than simple curiosity if you ask me.”

Victor paused and looked at him, his brow wrinkled. “What are you suggesting?”

Chris’s voice took on a somber tone, his green eyes sincere. “Just…this day and age, you gotta be careful who you trust, you know?”

“Hm.” Victor took a thoughtful pause, then returned to his pizza.

***

Victor did not admit it to Yuuri, but he was starting to get busier than he was comfortable with. His work at Columbia could not be abandoned. He was increasingly involved in epigenetic research on the aetiology of psychosis at Harvard, which in its own way was equally important. Then there was the study with Yuuri; and that, above all else, intrigued him. Yuuri’s unusual areas of interest, and his creative ideas about how to investigate them, were refreshing. Having taken it upon himself to recruit the subjects and test their suitability, he had now obtained data from two of them, and said he wanted to review it and draw out ideas for how to refine their approach before presenting the findings to Victor. Victor found his methodology to be professional, conscientious and enthusiastic. Unfortunately, however, even that could not add more minutes to the day.

Perhaps it was just as well. He’d been wanting to ask Yuuri out on a date – without using the word; but it was possible that Yuuri would say no anyway, and where would that leave their personal and professional relationships? Victor liked to believe there was still hope for the former, because unless he was mistaken, Yuuri seemed increasingly at ease with him as they worked together. He also didn’t seem to mind when Victor was physically close to him, or touched him briefly, though anything more lingering was still untested territory. But then, these behaviors could equally apply to someone Yuuri saw as a good friend and nothing more, like Phichit. Apart from one possible hopeful sign: the pictures that had been on the wall when Victor had made his initial surprise visit, and had subsequently been removed; which Yuuri had then clearly been nonplussed about him noticing. It seemed such a trivial thing, however, that Victor was uncertain whether he should be reading any deeper meaning into it.

Subtle, then, seemed to be the best approach, though Victor wasn’t sure how good he was at it. He occasionally suggested they go out to lunch together, or take the food they’d brought and eat outside if the weather was nice; Yuuri even suggested it himself sometimes. They would take walks over one of the nearby bridges and along the lovely Esplanade, ostensibly to discuss their study, though they often ended up sharing little personal details as well; like how a family trip to the Palomar Observatory in southern California inspired Yuuri to consider becoming an astrophysicist for a time, or how Victor enjoyed visiting St. Isaac’s Cathedral when he was in St. Petersburg not because he was religious, but because it was a beautiful place where it was possible to find peace away from the rest of the world for a while. Yuuri had simply nodded in understanding.

_I hope to be able to show it to you myself one day._

Always mindful of how far it was wise to push things before he came off as being aggressive, Victor nevertheless asked Yuuri again about jogging together, and to his relief Yuuri liked the idea. They went a couple of times after they’d finished at MIT for the day, that being the most convenient window in their schedules. Yuuri was quiet for the most part, seemingly intent on having a good workout, guiding them through areas away from the busy concrete streets that Victor would not have known existed: winding paths under weeping willows near the river, narrow lanes lined with roses and hydrangeas, backstreets that led inexorably upward until they opened dramatically onto a panoramic view of the city. They passed all manner of people, but one individual stood out for Victor in particular because he was certain they’d jogged past him on both occasions: a Native American man about their age with chocolate-brown hair that flowed in free waves down his back, café au lait skin, shabby denim clothes and tennis shoes, and sharp dark eyes. Awash in the tide of other pedestrians on the sidewalk as the man had been, Victor was sure he would have overlooked him if it hadn’t been for those eyes. They didn’t stare, but he felt their hold a little longer than what was normal from a stranger. The vain part of him wondered briefly if someone else was finding him attractive, but then he decided the matter was irrelevant and pushed it out of his mind.

The third time they met in the late afternoon for their jog, Victor asked Yuuri if he had a music playlist that he listened to when he worked out. They had changed into their athletic clothing, Yuuri’s dark blue and Victor’s gray, and were doing brief stretches by an old oak tree in the middle of a square of green on the campus.

“Sure,” Yuuri replied. “It motivates me to move, especially when I’m worn out before I start.”

“Could we listen to it today?”

“Um…you want to listen to my music?”

Victor looked at him with a little smile. “Why not? I’m curious.”

“It’s just a huge variety of things, that’s all. I leave my chip in shuffle mode, so I never know what’s going to come up.”

“Sounds like fun. Come on, then.”

They synchronized the music so that they were both listening to the same songs at the same time. Yuuri’s expression and posture, even while jogging, were reminiscent of the day they’d played Brainquake in the lab. Victor wondered if perhaps he considered his musical tastes to be rather private, and resolved to say nothing that could be construed as judgmental no matter what he heard.

Well, Yuuri had been right about the variety. There were rock songs that had been popular that year, as well as eighty years ago, followed by trance-like wave music, with a sprinkling of pop, Zen, junkyard, 1960s Motown, even disco. The way the genres jumped made Victor think of the flitter of tiny birds from twig to twig, never settling long in one place before deciding it was time to try another. It was refreshingly different, and Victor liked the surprise of finding out what came next.

They were passing a Mei Wei when he gestured that he wanted to go inside, and they paused the music. “I felt like a drink,” he said as they got in line. “You know, that’s the most eclectic playlist I’ve ever heard. I like it, though.”

Yuuri smiled, looking relieved that Victor approved. “I like to try a little of just about everything.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Victor purred, the corners of his mouth turning up. Yuuri just stared at him, a delicious blush painting itself across his cheeks. They bought their drinks, Victor a Diet Coke and Yuuri a chilled carton of water, then walked back outside, sipping, and turned the music back on – and Victor burst out laughing, spitting his mouthful of soda onto the sidewalk.

“What _is_ this?” he said, turning the volume down. “It sounds like…I don’t know. _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ crossed with some kind of kids’ cartoon.”

“Uh…I forgot those were on there, sorry. Back when we were roommates, Phichit used to play this VR game that had the most amazing soundtrack. For a game, anyway. It was like the composer played with every style he could think of, one for each level, and pumped them full of steroids.” Victor laughed. “I think this is supposed to be like something from a wild west film. There’s also mariachi, didgeridoo, big band…honestly, I’m not sure how you’d classify the rest, but I thought there was a touch of genius in it. Anyway, it’s pretty crazy stuff, so I’ll just – ”

“No, no, leave it,” Victor chuckled. “It’s…what’s the word? Exuberant. And ridiculous. And yeah, genius too, maybe. I want to run to it.”

“Suit yourself,” Yuuri said with a smile. They finished their drinks, put the empty cardboard cartons in a recycling bin, and headed off.

“I recognize this one,” Victor huffed as he ran alongside Yuuri. They were heading back the way they’d come now, down side roads that were busier than before as the evening rush hour reached its peak.

“ _Everybody_ recognizes this one. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ I think they’d otherwise be forgotten as some old twentieth-century band. Well, not by me, but half the music I listen to is by people who died before I was born.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. I like classical music, talking about dead rock stars of another age. Mozart and Vivaldi are great for a workout.”

“We’ll have to listen to your playlist next time. I don’t know anything about those composers.”

“Really? I bet you’ve heard snippets, at least, and not realized what they were. We’ll have to put you right.”

“Sure, I’d like that.”

They had both slowed down a little so they could talk without gasping for breath. As the Queen song ended, Victor said, “This singer…he’s the one whose picture you had on your office wall, isn’t he? Are you a fan?”

Yuuri blenched. Those pictures still seemed to be a sore point, but Victor was curious; maybe Yuuri would be a little more forthcoming now.

“Uh, well…yeah. Especially when I was younger. Though he died before I was born too. He just had such…panache, you know? He was talented, funny, bold, sex – um…he was openly gay when there was still a lot of prejudice around. I mean, I was mainly into Queen as a teenager, but I’ll always be fond of them, I think.”

Victor grinned and eyed him as they jogged past red-brick terraced houses. “He was a gay role model for you when you were growing up, then.”

“I guess you could say that, yeah.”

“Is that the sort of person whose picture you like to hang on your wall?” he ventured, expecting the blush this time that promptly shot through Yuuri’s cheeks. He allowed the moment to extend itself; then when Yuuri said nothing in reply, he decided to smooth over his obvious embarrassment. “What’s this song? I like it.” Though in the blink of an eye he could call the information up on his chip if he wanted.

“Kouki Uchiyama, ‘I Dream of You.’ ”

“Mellow.”

When Yuuri remained quiet, Victor decided to try something else to coax him out of his shell; and when the next song played, it was ideal. “Ah, this is one of my favorites,” he enthused. Well, he’d at least heard it once or twice before. Another oldie, “Soul Man,” and very catchy.

“Really?” Yuuri asked, shooting him an incredulous glance.

“Why not? How can you not dance when you’re listening to this?” Victor undulated his shoulders and arms in time to the music, and Yuuri guffawed.

“Victor, what are you doing? People are looking.”

“Let them look. I’m not so bad, am I?” He did a little spin, and continued to sway to the rhythm as he jogged.

“No, you’re…uh, you’re really good, actually. But – ”

“I bet you are, too. This is your playlist, isn’t it? You must like this song. Join me?”

“Oh god,” Yuuri breathed, shaking his head and smiling.

There was a small cement path branching to the right just up ahead, which appeared to lead past a quiet stretch of parkland with a pond on one side and tall maples on the other. “Where does that go?” Victor asked.

“Just around the pond, I think.”

Victor veered in that direction and Yuuri followed. “All right, Yuuri, I want you to put your favorite Queen song on for both of us. I bet you dance to it in your apartment all the time.”

Silence again. Then a muttered, “Maybe sometimes.”

“And sing to it, too?”

“Well…”

“Come on, it must be good.” He gave him an encouraging smile.

Victor’s chip played a strange slowed-down unintelligible vocal track, joined by the peal of a synthesizer, and then…it all stopped, and the edge of a rock and roll riff cranked out on an electric guitar, solo and raw. Victor had never heard the song before, but it was the kind of thing that got into your bones. He let his shoulders, arms and hips move loosely to the beat, just shy of being ridiculous, while he looked ahead and continued to jog.

He flicked a glance over at Yuuri, who was bobbing his head, his upper body moving slightly but fluidly to the beat. Noticing Victor’s attention, he smiled; and in his eyes was a new spark that looked…almost mischievous.

Trying not to stare too hard, Victor concentrated on achieving the appearance of a good dancer who was deliberately being silly, and soon found it was coming naturally anyway. Yuuri’s laughter rang out high and clear next to him, and Victor saw that he was making similar moves, lively and graceful. Victor marveled at the change in him. There was no more embarrassment at being noticed by passersby; no qualms, even, about what Victor seemed to think. He was in a world of rhythm and song and dance. And he was exquisite.

Then, as if they’d suddenly dropped out of a cloud onto the solid ground, there was the gym building in front of them, where they’d left their gear. They couldn’t be back already. Not now, not yet.

As they stopped at the front door, the song soared into an instrumental break; Yuuri grabbed Victor’s hand, lifted it high up, and twirled him around, those brown eyes heated with a fire Victor hadn’t seen since…

_Oh yes. There he is again. I knew he’d come back._

He took several deep breaths, filled with the sensation of teetering on a cliff; not caring, as long as that gaze held him, burned into him.

And then as quickly as it had come, it faded. Yuuri’s eyes suddenly flew open wide and he dropped Victor’s hand and stepped back. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again, and opened the door. “We’d better get our stuff,” he said in a quiet voice that wavered a touch.

Victor simply nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri’s playlist really is eclectic; links to the genuine songs mentioned in this chapter are below. The “ _Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ crossed with a kids’ cartoon” is from the Rayman Origins soundtrack – a glorious experimentation with many different genres. The part Victor’s referring to starts at 1:40.
> 
> [“Rayman Origins OST – Land of the Livid Dead – Nowhere to Run”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0bW7ThjpM) by Christophe Héral 
> 
> [“Bohemian Rhapsody”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ) by Queen. Maybe you’ve heard it a hundred times before, but here’s the link for the 101st.
> 
> [“Soul Man”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVx2i6jGzf8) by Sam and Dave
> 
> [“One Vision”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_1IMZmJe-U) by Queen


	11. Chapter 11

Now well into a warm and beautiful May, with an endless variety of palettes on show wherever there were flowerbeds or gardens, the study reached its one-month mark since Victor and Yuuri had finalized their plans for it. They’d written the literature review, and so were well-versed in past research on the topic (of which there was little of relevance, but Victor found this all the more intriguing). Approval and funding from MIT had been sped through the appropriate channels thanks to a few connections Victor had. They had adapted lab tech to work manually for people who were not chipped, which was going to be the case for all ten of the subjects Yuuri had recruited; and it seemed to come off without a hitch for the first two. They had discussed the raw data from this, and Victor thought it was a promising start, though Yuuri seemed oddly unsatisfied. Well, if he thought a few initial brainwave readings and so on were going to reveal the secrets of a shamanic trance, Victor could see why he might have been disappointed, though he’d been trying from the outset to warn Yuuri about harboring such unrealistic expectations. Besides, there were no doubt more things to be learned as the research continued.

Victor hadn’t been present on the days when the subjects were in the lab. While Yuuri seemed genuinely not to mind putting in the hours the more routine and tedious tasks required, Victor wished he had the time himself to participate more fully. He knew that Yuuri had traveled west into the mountains, and outside the state, in order to meet with people who by choice lived with little or no tech, and persuade them to visit a place that was alien to them. His efforts had largely been successful, no doubt aided by that soft-spoken but passionate way he had of making a point.

One thing Victor _could_ do to help was get the university to pay the volunteers generously for their time and travel expenses. That, it seemed, had made the crucial difference in recruiting them. Yuuri had said that the overall response from the Native Americans, and the shamans in particular, had felt somewhat cold and distant, as if they struggled to understand why he thought this research was necessary and why he wanted them to waste their time on it. Victor said it shouldn’t have any bearing on their results, as long as they could get them into the lab. He’d been fearing that they might have to set up a portable suite of equipment and agree to travel to meet their volunteers at their homes, which would be expensive and time-consuming; but fortunately it appeared that wouldn’t be necessary.

He was at his desk in the office one morning – well, Phichit’s desk, though the young man had been conspicuous by his absence since Victor had been on the scene, and he hoped he hadn’t driven him away – watching Yuuri sip his peppermint and cocoa tea, and wondering how he would take the latest news regarding their research. Victor suspected it might not be welcome, though he himself was excited about it. He took a bite of a pryanik, one of the honey-spice cookies he’d bought from the Russian bakery that morning, then dunked it in some black tea with milk and sugar; pryaniki were gorgeous eaten that way. Yuuri had tried one, and seemed to love it; not as much as the Spartak cake, if his expression had been anything to go by, but then that had been a shameless indulgence on Victor’s part, he knew. Yuuri had an unusual relationship with food that Victor suspected he’d only seen the surface of; and if he said he didn’t want to have sweet treats too often, Victor was not going to continually tempt him with them. Though it was hard to imagine someone as trim as he was struggling with such a thing.  

“Yuuri,” he said after taking the last bite of his cookie, “I was wondering how you’d feel about…sharing our preliminary research results with a few people in a couple of months’ time. In July.”

Yuuri had been nursing his mug of tea, his elbows resting on his desk, but now sat back in his chair and looked at him warily. “Oh?”

“They’ve extended an invitation to us. Well, not just to us. This university is going to be hosting a series of seminars for some of its faculty and people from Harvard and Johns Hopkins as part of a collaborative information-sharing project.” He hadn’t expected anything other than the look of horror that crossed Yuuri’s face, and went on hastily, “None of them will be formally reporting results. It’s meant to be a way of informing colleagues about the more interesting research in the field of neuroscience that’s in progress right now. Some…very well-placed people are curious about what you and I are doing together, and have asked if we’d attend.”

A hand fluttered over Yuuri’s mouth and his eyes widened. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he muttered, grabbing his mug and cupping it like it was some kind of protective talisman. “I’ve only been here for ten years, why tell me?”

_Or maybe they saw how upset you were when you got back from Stanford and thought I might be able to find a way to bring you around to the idea of doing something similar again._ “It’d be a completely different audience and atmosphere this time,” Victor said gently. “And no one’s research will be complete yet, so – ”

“So maybe I won’t be the only one who’s made mistakes, you mean?” Yuuri was staring down at his tea.

“Aren’t you forgetting something? There are two of us now. This is as much my research as it is yours.”

Astoundingly, the thought did not seem to have crossed Yuuri’s mind; he gave a little start, and his eyes flitted back up to meet Victor’s. “I…yes. Of course it is.”

“I said I’d double-check all the math, if it helped. And I’d be happy to do as much of the presenting at the seminar as you’re comfortable with – though as my partner, I hope you’d be willing to do some of it with me. You’ve done the most work; it’d only be right for you to take the credit.”

Yuuri’s face was almost glowing now as he considered Victor’s words, and Victor couldn’t help but feel an answering surge of warmth sweep through him. Ah, success was sweet. But the sparkle in Yuuri’s eyes was sweeter still.

***

Though Victor’s reassurances seemed to dampen any anxiety Yuuri had about giving a presentation, at least for the time being, he suddenly seemed to be driven doubly hard to prepare. He said that was the key that enabled him to face an audience on occasions when it was impossible to avoid, such as the graduate class he taught; he confessed he spent more time than anyone else he knew planning what to say and do, so that he was unlikely to ever be at a loss. Victor was beginning to understand how, when a wrench was thrown into the works such as the Oxford professor publicly calling him out on his mistakes, or his chip malfunctioning, it might feel threatening to that sense of control he wanted; though of course, life had a habit of springing surprises on people like that. Well, he would have Victor with him this time, and there was little that could daunt him. Yuuri had nothing to worry about there.

Victor arrived at the office late one afternoon, having been busy at Harvard up to that point, to discuss how and what they could present in their seminar. They each had drawn up some ideas to share, but the time seemed to slip through their fingers; and Victor was surprised to find that though it had gone five o’clock, they hadn’t made a great deal of progress.  

“I’m sorry I got here so late today,” he said. “I could rearrange a couple of meetings tomorrow morning and come back – ”

“No, no, it’s OK. We’ve got time yet. I’m just…I guess I’ll rest easier when I know we’ve got some solid plans.”

Victor wrinkled his brow. If Yuuri needed reassurance that everything was on track for their presentation, then that was what he was going to give him somehow. “I didn’t have any plans for tonight. We could have a bite to eat and, I don’t know, come back here if we can get in at that sort of time.”

Yuuri folded his arms as he sat in his chair, looking at him. “I don’t want to put you out. I know how busy you’ve been lately.”

That did it. “Come on. Nothing’s more important than this.” He grabbed his coat jacket from the peg and pulled it on, then picked up his bag. “Where do you want to eat?”

Yuuri stood too. “I just thought – instead of coming back here, we could…well…”

Victor turned at his hesitation, the corners of his mouth quirking in a grin. “What?”

“…go to my place for something to eat,” Yuuri finished in a small voice. “It’d be easy to work there. If…I mean – ”

Victor’s grin turned into a bright smile of delight. “I’d love to.”

Yuuri just gave him a soft smile in return.

They traveled by T and walked the short distance from the Eagle Hill station to Yuuri’s apartment house. This was the sort of area, Victor realized, that Americans would call old. Most of the houses here were tall two- and three-story nineteenth-century wooden edifices, painted different bright colors, with stone steps leading up to the front door, and bay windows and balconies with white-painted ornamental balustrades; the majority seemed to have been divided up and given over to apartments. It was charming, Victor thought. It had character. Yuuri let them through the front door into a dim entrance hall with dark wood-paneled walls and a slightly chipped-looking chandelier hanging above, throwing yellow light on them.

“Have you lived here long?” Victor asked as they made their way up wooden stairs with a tread of green and maroon plaid carpet scrolled down them, thick on the sides and worn and faded in the middle. Each step made some kind of protest as they walked. There was a faint musty smell, not unpleasant, of the type that buildings with elderly furnishings tended to exude. The place was by no means dilapidated, but it felt like it hadn’t had much attention for some time.

“A few years,” Yuuri answered as they arrived at the top of the stairs and a wooden door opened for him.

The light, airy, almost vacant effect of the place, very different from the hallway they’d just left, was what Victor noticed at first. Neutral colors, bare walls, bright overhead white lights. Yet it didn’t have the feel of someone who was obsessively tidy; rather that the resident lived simply, and didn’t bother with many possessions. It was on the small side too, though one person might have thought it homely enough, with a kitchenette separated by a counter from the living area, a bedroom and a bathroom. Victor wondered if Yuuri got many visitors here. He didn’t see any photos anywhere.

“I don’t own it, but it does for me. Um, make yourself at home; there’s a peg for your coat on the back of the door.” Yuuri slung his own coat over one of two chairs at a little square wooden table next to the counter. “Friday, make it twenty-one degrees Celsius in here.”

“Roger that, Dr. Katsuki.”

Victor hung up his coat, then walked over to the counter, leaned on it, and smiled. “That’s a very formal Friday. Nice voice, though.”

“I don’t like them calling me by my first name. It’s…weird.”

“I know what you mean. The more human they make them sound, it’s like the more aware you are that they aren’t.”

Yuuri gave him a curious look. “Exactly. Um…would you like anything to drink? I’ve got…actually, I don’t have much. Tea, some instant coffee that’s probably long past its use-by date…”

“A glass of water’s fine.”

“Sorry. I don’t tend to keep much in the way of drinks here.” He filled a clear glass from the faucet and passed it to Victor.

“You must like a little wine or a beer once in a while to unwind?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Not by myself. And not often. Have you seen the calorie content of alcohol?”

Victor watched him quietly as he busied about the kitchen, pulling ingredients for dinner from cupboards and the refrigerator, and mused again about his unusual dietary habits, and whether anything in particular had been a catalyst for them. It had been an unexpected treat to be asked here into Yuuri’s inner sanctum, but Victor was wondering if he was beginning to have second thoughts; his movements were quick and nervous, and he kept his back turned to him for the most part. Victor sipped at his water, wondering how best to approach the situation. Undoing the second button on his cream-colored shirt and rolling his sleeves up, he entered the kitchenette and stood to the side, watching. “What are you making?”

Yuuri darted a glance at him as if surprised he was suddenly so close. “I was just checking to see what ingredients I had. You like curry, don’t you?”

Victor nodded. “I liked it when we ordered it weeks back. I haven’t had it since. You can cook it?”

“I make it all the time. Though there are different kinds, of course. Calling Indian food ‘curry’ is kind of like calling Italian food ‘spaghetti.’ ” Let’s see…I chopped some lamb this morning, if that’s something you’d eat?”

“Sure.”

“Okra?”

“Great.”

“Good.”

Victor huffed a laugh. “Though I’d just as easily eat a hot dog or a can of soup. Or whatever a drone brought. It’s...um, most people don’t go to this much time and effort to cook. I wouldn’t want you to do it just for me.”

“Well…” Yuuri finished taking ingredients out of the fridge and grabbed some spice jars from the cupboard in front of him. “…at least if you’ve cooked it, you know what’s in it. You can leave stuff out if you don’t want it. And…” He fished a pot from under the hob, and a wooden spoon from a drawer, along with a couple of cook’s knives, then flashed Victor a smile. “…it tastes better.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. _Control again. Over what you eat. Planning and rehearsing in detail what to say and do in front of an audience. Being able to monitor what’s going on in your body with that gadget. Was there something in your life, Yuuri, that made you feel so out of control, so helpless, that you grabbed onto these things? Who are you, deep down?_

“Can I help?” he said aloud.

“Um…you could…peel and chop the ginger and garlic. If you don’t mind your fingers smelling of it. I think I have some gloves somewhere…”

“It’s OK,” Victor said quietly. They shared a cutting board while Victor did as Yuuri asked, and Yuuri peeled and diced an onion. Victor sidled closer; he couldn’t resist. Yuuri’s white cotton shirt flexed in straight edges when Victor pressed slightly against it. He could feel Yuuri’s warmth next to him; hear the soft breaths he took; smell some kind of scented soap, despite the tang of the onion in the air. It was like roses – real roses, not the ersatz overpowering perfume in cheap toiletries.

Victor felt his own breaths quicken. He wanted so, so much to lean over and kiss this man – in his hair, on his forehead, and most of all, capturing those pink lips that had been driving him to distraction for weeks. He’d never felt this kind of yearning for such a long period of time before. People had usually chased him in the past, rather than vice versa, affording him the luxury of sitting back and choosing whether to take what they offered or leave it. This was different; new, and…disconcerting. That day at the end of their jog, when Yuuri had grabbed his hand, twirled him around, and looked at him like _that_ …he’d dared to hope for a moment that this barrier between them, as transparent yet impregnable as glass, was going to dissolve. But it was just as intact as ever now – and was he really going to try to make a move on Yuuri in his own apartment, where there was nowhere for him to retreat if he decided it was unwelcome?

_The best things in life come to those who wait, they say. And Yuuri’s worth it; I can’t risk doing something too soon, and threatening what we’ve already built together._

Yuuri took a small white ceramic bowl out of a cupboard, then a ring of measuring spoons from a drawer, and picked up a spice jar. “Do you cook much with spices?” he asked, seemingly as an afterthought.

“More with herbs, I guess you could say. When I _do_ cook, which isn’t often. Russian food doesn’t have much in common with spicy foods in countries further south. Though shashlik – meat kebabs – is made with Indian spices sometimes.”

“All the aromas are another reason I like to cook.” He took the lid off the jar, sniffed the contents, then measured a teaspoonful into the bowl. “Recognize this?” He lifted it up. Victor bent over and took a sniff.

“That’s got to be cumin.”

“Got it in one. How about this?”

They continued the game, Victor getting the rest of them wrong; though it was fun, and he loved the exotic scents. With all the ingredients prepared, he stood and watched while Yuuri cooked. And he was right – the onion, ginger and garlic frying in ghee; the popping black mustard seeds; the lamb and spices…each had its own signature that was blended into the whole. It would almost be a shame to eat such a work of art. Almost.

Yuuri set the pot to simmer for a while, then his eyes went wide. “Oh Victor – I’m sorry, I forgot to ask you if you want rice with it. It’s just that, um, I’m not used to – ”

“I think there’s enough to eat without that as well. Really, it’s fine.” He chuckled. “I’ve never met a Japanese person who wouldn’t eat rice. Though you’ve lived here a long time, so maybe that’s not so unusual.”

Yuuri shrugged. “Sometimes when I want to treat myself, I have katsudon – that’s a pork cutlet bowl. But it’s so much work to make properly from scratch that I’m not usually tempted.”

“I’d love to try it.”

Yuuri smiled, went into the living area, and sat down on the sofa, pulling a tablet out of his carryall. “While that’s cooking, maybe we ought to get back to what we were talking about before we left the office. I don’t want to keep you here all night.”

_I beg to differ._ Another open goal; but Victor remained silent and simply sat down next to him at a distance he hoped was almost-but-not-quite intimate, then got his own tablet out. Somehow he was going to have to force himself to concentrate on neuroscience. Normally that would not have been a problem, but just now…

Well, somehow he managed to pull that particular rabbit out of his hat. In fact, he was proud of the illusion of easy confidence and self-control he felt he projected throughout the evening as they talked about their research, ate a beautifully cooked meal, and sat down again to resume work. Before they started, Victor noticed a small round black object resting on the coffee table and picked it up. “What’s this?”

“Oh…that’s um…the brainwave-entraining device I made the video about.”

“Really?” Victor said enthusiastically, turning it over in his fingers and examining it, though there wasn’t much to see on the outside. “If you’re going to patent this, you ought to think of some catchy name, like…I don’t know. ‘Sleep-eeze’ or ‘Dreamaway’ or ‘Insta-bliss.’ ” Yuuri laughed. “What’s it like to use it?”

“You can try it if you want. Though I doubt you’d want to take your brainwaves lower than beta right now, while we’re working.”

“Hm. You didn’t answer my question. Does it do what you were hoping it would?”

“I’m really happy with it, yeah, which is why I thought I’d invite other people to refine it. I can…um, it helps me…relax.”

“Is that hard for you to do?” _Because I could help you with that. I guarantee it. Maybe after getting us both excited first. Right here on this sofa. Oh_ bozhe, _please let me._ He swallowed. _Patient…be patient._

Yuuri quirked a smile at him. “I guess it is for everybody, sometimes. Anyway, can I get you anything to drink before we start again?” Then he caught himself. “Um, I can do tapwater ten different ways, you know.”

“That’s fine,” Victor laughed. “I’ll have the one where it’s being made cold with some ice cubes.”

They spent a couple of hours refining the details of their presentation, focusing on the structure, since most of the data was still being collected. Once his mind was on his work, Victor found he could just about ignore the distraction that was sitting so beautiful and warm next to him. The ice that he kept putting in his water, with Yuuri’s permission to access the fridge, was some help.

“Victor…” Yuuri said eventually, “…I know I’ve said this before, but…have you ever thought about how useful our research will actually be? I mean, we’re learning more about what happens in the brain when the subject is in a state of trance. But we’re not any closer to finding out _how_ the brain state _causes_ the effects experienced by the subject. If it does at all. We’re not even touching on how real the experience is, or how it arises in the first place. Don’t…don’t you think those are interesting areas to explore?”

Ah, this again. It was obviously something close to Yuuri’s heart. Victor thought he could understand, but there weren’t any easy answers, and surely Yuuri was aware of it. “If you know of any way we could scientifically ascertain the objective reality of what the subject experiences during the trance state, I’d honestly like to hear about it. But as far as I’m aware, no one’s worked out how to do that yet.”

Yuuri sighed and put his tablet down on the table next to him. “I was hoping that comparing the findings from one cohort to those from the other – the subjects with psychosis – would highlight some differences that could end up being promising leads for further research.”

“Well there you go, then. We’ll have to see what data we get first.”

“Or…maybe this is completely the wrong way to be going about trying to investigate the subject. I don’t know.”

“But we’ve already learned things, Yuuri. You have to climb a ladder a step at a time. Maybe, after a while, you could end up where you wanted to be in this area of research, but this is where it’s at right now. We can inform our audience at the seminar, for example, that a shamanic state of consciousness involves a shift from the normally dominant left analytical to the right experiential mode of self-experience, and from the normally dominant anterior prefrontal to the posterior somatosensory mode. And we can say that this has implications for the psychobiology of the normative conscious mode of awareness and neurophysiological processes contributing to dissociative, psychotic, and transpersonal domains of self-experience.” He chuckled. “Try getting me to say that when I’m drunk.”

Yuuri burst out laughing.

“We’re also seeing, are we not, preliminary data showing that mystical experiences are described as blissful or ecstatic because they share many of the same neural pathways in the parietal and frontal lobes that are involved in sexual arousal, falling in love, listening to music, and so on. Endorphins are being released, plus a cocktail of dopamine and serotonin-led neurotransmitters that flood the central nervous system and the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s reward center.” He gave Yuuri a grin; he couldn’t help it. “So if anything, it’s pleasurable to have those kinds of experiences. You’ll be familiar with that sort of thing yourself, from your paper on aphrodisiacs.” He softened his voice. “In fact, I think that makes you the expert on the subject.”  

Yuuri just stared at him, his cheeks dusted with pink, his mouth slightly open. Like Victor was a visitor from another planet, or some unearthly vision. But he didn’t move. Victor allowed the moment to simply exist in its own time, as he always did when he threw out these pieces of bait, none of which ever seemed to have quite the effect he was hoping for. And as he always did, to save Yuuri further embarrassment, he put an end to it before too long. “Good grief, is that the time? I had no idea.” A few more choice things to say entered his head just then. _It’s not surprising, when I’m having such a stimulating discussion. Yuuri, tell me more of what you know about the male sexual response…so that we can compare it with the trance state of our subjects. And were there any aphrodisiacs in the dinner you cooked tonight? Because I’m feeling…_ Then he stopped himself, suddenly weary of it all. A game that perhaps Yuuri didn’t even want to play. And it _was_ late.

“Oh god, it’s half past eleven,” Yuuri said. “I didn’t mean to keep you here all that time.”

“It’s OK. I’ll find my way back on the T. Take the train downtown, then – ”

“No, I wouldn’t want to think of you traveling down there at this time of night.”

“Oh?”

“More and more people living on the streets, without chips…I’d like to say Boston is safe, or at least Cambridge is, but not so much anymore.”

“Well, I could get a taxi.”

“You were going to MIT in the morning, weren’t you? You could just crash here for the night, if you…um, if you want. Not that…I mean, it’s up to you.”

Victor looked at him keenly. It would be easy enough to get a taxi; there was no pressing need for Yuuri to make such an offer. And yet it felt pretty clear that it was not an overtly sexual gesture. Whatever kind of complicated signal this was meant to be – if it was one at all – Victor was too tired to try to figure it out.

“Are you sure?” he said politely.

“I don’t mind. If that works for you.”

“Sure.”

Yuuri gathered up their glasses and put them in the sink. “You’re welcome to have the bed. I’ll sleep in here on the sofa.”

“I couldn’t possibly kick you out of your own room.”

“You wouldn’t be. Come on, you’re the guest.”

“Which is why I should sleep on the sofa,” Victor said, removing his shirt and hanging it neatly over a chair. His attitude was nonchalant, but he was sure he caught Yuuri staring out of the corner of his eye.

“Well…” His voice hitched. “If you really want to…”

“I’ll be fine here.” _And I don’t know how well I’d cope with sleeping in your bed, your scent and all your things around me, without you there. No, that’s not what I want._

“I’ll get you some pillows and a blanket, then.”

***

Victor opened his eyes to soft golden light diffused by the thin cream-colored curtains that had been pulled across the French windows, which led onto a small balcony overlooking the main street. Momentarily disoriented, he quickly recalled the evening before, and lay still, cushioned in the soft fabric of the sofa and the warm blanket Yuuri had given him. He hadn’t had the chance to get a good look around until now, but there didn’t seem to be much else the apartment could tell him about the mystery that was Yuuri. What did he do in his spare time? Did he have much? It struck Victor that if he lived here himself, he would want to get out as often as possible, because it felt…empty.

He accessed his chip for a while, enjoying the sunlight on his face, until he heard stirrings in the bedroom. Then he got up, debating the tastefulness of parading around without his shirt and deciding to compromise by putting it on without buttoning it. Raking his fingers through his hair, he poked through the fridge and took a few items out; Yuuri entered while he was cooking, buttoning his shirt cuffs.

“Smells nice. What is it?”

That was a relief; at least he didn’t seem to mind him rummaging through the things in his kitchen to make them breakfast. “Good morning. And it’s an omelet with cheese – is that OK?”

“Sounds great. I didn’t expect you to cook.”

“I thought it was the least I could do after the lovely dinner you made last night.”

“Well…thanks.” Yuuri gathered plates and forks and put them on the counter, and Victor slipped the omelet from the frying pan onto a plate for Yuuri, then turned to cook his own. “Did you sleep OK?”

“I don’t think I woke up once before the morning. That’s a very comfortable sofa.”

“Yeah, it is.” Yuuri sat down and took a bite of his omelet. “This is perfect.”

“Thank you.”

Victor joined him when his own was done. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want to eat, exactly, but I figured if you had it in your fridge, it’d be OK to cook.”

“A logical assumption. Correct, as it happens.”

“Am I…also correct in assuming that the paleolithic diet is what you follow? I did a little research, based on the kinds of things you avoid eating.”

Yuuri paused and looked at him. “Loosely, yeah. I go by those guidelines. Though I don’t eat tons of meat or anything, and I have dairy foods. It’s mainly high fat and low carb – though I have lots of fruit and veg, which are complex carbs, so I guess you couldn’t really call it that either.” He looked a little discomfited. “I usually just try to avoid talking to people about it, because they get confused, and then they assume I’m going to be awkward about food, and…well…”

“It’s a handy thing to know about you, after all the meals we’ve eaten together.”

Yuuri just nodded as he ate.

Victor’s voice dropped and softened. “I…hope you can trust that I wouldn’t be judgmental about anything like that, if you chose to tell me. I’d like to think you felt you could.”

Yuuri’s eyes found his and seemed to be searching them. “I suppose I assume most people don’t want to know or wouldn’t care.”

“Well, whether that’s true or not…I’m not most people.”

Yuuri looked, quietly, for another moment, then huffed a laugh. “No. You’re not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Victor’s favorite cookies:
> 
> Pryaniki (Russian honey-spice cookies)
> 
> _Ingredients:_  
>  ¼ cup cold coffee  
> ½ cup butter  
> ½ cup sugar  
> ½ cup honey  
> 1 tsp vanilla  
> 1 tsp allspice  
> 2 tsp cinnamon  
> 2 tsp ground ginger  
> ½ tsp ground cloves  
> Dash nutmeg  
> 1 egg  
> ½ tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tsp white vinegar  
> ½ tsp baking powder  
> ½ tsp salt  
> 3 ½ cups plain flour
> 
> _Glaze:_  
>  2 cups powdered sugar  
> 1/3 cup milk  
> Dash vanilla extract
> 
> _Instructions:_  
>  In a medium saucepan, add the coffee, sugar, butter and honey, bring to a boil on medium heat and cook, stirring, just until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
> 
> Place the mixture in a large bowl and add all the spices and vanilla. Add the egg, then the baking soda dissolved in vinegar. Add all other ingredients and mix until incorporated. 
> 
> Cover the batter with cling film or a kitchen towel and set aside at room temperature for 1 hour.
> 
> Form tablespoon-sized pieces of batter into balls and place on parchment paper. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 170°C/325°F.
> 
> While the cookies are cooling, make the glaze. Mix powdered sugar, milk and vanilla together in a bowl. Dip each cookie in the glaze, letting the excess run off. Set the glazed cookies on a rack or parchment paper to dry. Traditionally, pryaniki are glazed on both sides.


	12. Chapter 12

Yuuri was jogging to work most days now, unless he was planning to do so with Victor later in the afternoon. It was more relaxing than traveling on the T during rush hour, got his endorphins going, made him feel more alert, and helped to keep the extra weight off. Boston had a fresh glimmer in the morning sunshine as well, which could only really be appreciated if you went someplace where you could get a good view of the gray planes of the skyscrapers and the blue glassy surfaces of the river and the harbor. It seemed pristine, somehow, before the more penetrating rays of the ripening day exposed glimpses of the underbelly: the grime, the dilapidated boarded-up old buildings in weed-choked lots, the poverty of the homeless and unchipped, living cash in hand and excluded from so many modern necessities. Yuuri often wondered what an individual like himself could do to improve things, especially as these problems were not confined to Boston. Voting played such a small part in it all, especially when it was common knowledge that most politicians had been bought by oligarchs, criminals, owners of property empires, or anyone else with plenty of money to spare. This was another reason why he seldom checked the news on his chip; it was rarely uplifting, even though the official channels always censored it or softened its edges.

Like most everyone else, he reckoned, all he could do was focus on living a good life. Maybe he was doing his bit, in a way, by helping the newly awakened people with ESP. Days could go by where he sensed no new presences, but they always turned up eventually. And when he connected with the longstanding ones he knew, it was like visiting with good friends. No incidents involving the Orphic egg symbol had occurred recently; and while he supposed it was unlikely he’d seen it for the last time, he could always hope. He’d made a few more attempts to discover what clues he could about its origin or meaning, without success, and had begun to fear that if he showed too much interest by searching via his chip, it might attract unwanted attention from authorities that were possibly associated with it. Though he told himself it was paranoid to think such things.

But it was Victor who occupied most of his thoughts – their study, and the man himself. As for the former, that was going as smoothly as could be, it seemed. He had more time than Victor to devote to it, especially with his frequent weekend visits to Columbia, though Victor had been in to meet with subjects on a few occasions. He had also seemed to sense Yuuri’s anxiety about the seminar they’d agreed to present; and now that they had a concrete plan of action, Yuuri could gather and analyze the data relatively free of worry. It was all _so_ smooth, in fact, that he sometimes wondered what would happen when their study was complete, and Victor no longer had any reason to come to MIT. Yuuri looked forward to the days Victor was there more than anything else in the week; and the more time that passed, the more painful it was to imagine Victor disappearing for good back to Harvard or Columbia. And yet, what were they to each other? Not lovers, but…more than friends, maybe?

_How can I think that,_ he admonished himself as he jogged down the city sidewalk past tall buildings, _when we’ve barely touched?_ Accidental, or maybe not-so-accidental, brushes of hands or clothing didn’t count. Sitting next to each other – well, that was hardly any more risqué. And anything could be read into a gaze, especially if you wished hard enough.

_This is all assuming Victor would actually be interested in me, in that way, in the first place. I might be misreading situations. He likes to tease. He’s friendly. If I do anything to drive him away, I’ll never forgive myself._

His brain warned him to be careful, that he didn’t know what he was doing, that Victor was out of his league. But there was another part of him that didn’t think at all; it just felt, instinctively. And what it felt, most of the time, was desire. The two parts often seemed to be in conflict with each other. Neither had quite won out yet, though he’d only just managed to stop himself from trying to kiss Victor that day they’d been out jogging and they’d ended up…dance-jogging, or whatever it had been. Rounding off such an enjoyable activity with a misjudged move like that could have been disastrous.

In addition to this, he’d decided to bypass social conventions by asking Victor over to his apartment and _then_ asking him to _spend the night_ – when nothing romantic existed between them. He wondered what he’d been thinking, and the answer was that he hadn’t been; he’d simply been impelled by the wish to be with Victor in that way, if others were inaccessible to him. God only knew what Victor thought of it all, though he’d never been anything but a perfect gentleman – professional, funny and kind. If only he could know whether the innuendo and flirting – surely that was what it was – were signs that Victor wanted something more with him…or whether that was just his way of bantering with people.

_This isn’t fair. I’ve never been in a relationship. How am I supposed to know what to do?_

He briefly considered trying to talk to Phichit about it. He’d kept him updated on what was happening with Victor, even though he hadn’t been to the office as often since he’d begun work on the camera for the rover. But while Yuuri knew he would listen, and no doubt sympathize, he didn’t have a good track record either when it came to relationships. From the information that had leaked out of him little by little after his last breakup, Aroon had been fed up with how they went clubbing together only for Phichit to sometimes end up with multiple dance partners other than him. But Phichit was young, and Yuuri knew he wasn’t interested in having too serious a relationship yet; perhaps that had been the root of the problem. At any rate, as upset as Phichit had been initially, these days he was back to his normal cheerful self.

By contrast, Yuuri knew that if he lost Victor, it would cut him to the bone. Sure, he’d had silly starstruck dreams about him before they’d met. But now that Yuuri had been getting to know him…it was like a sketched outline on a canvas being painted in with vibrant colors, so much more real and alive. He found it impossible to define their relationship, but he knew it had reached into him deeply; become part of him.

He chose to jog across the older Longfellow Bridge, with the salt-and-pepper-shaker towers, watching the white sailboats like origami paper float down the river below; people were commonly up at the crack of dawn to take advantage like this of the warm late-spring days, poised between chill green flutterings of life and the sultry summer city heat. It had been a while since he’d been jogging with Victor; he ought to ask him. Sometimes they shared pieces of conversation, sometimes they ran along with an easy silence between them, and sometimes they listened to music. Victor had shared his playlist, which was not much less eclectic than Yuuri’s own, though his favorite music seemed to be classical and orchestral. Yuuri had never realized how complex its tapestry could be, or how emotionally evocative. He’d been surprised to discover that even songs with a slow tempo could be good to jog to, because they relaxed him inside. One day they’d listened to what Victor had said was Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” and it pulled at his heart and brought a tear to his eye, it was so impossibly beautiful. The pinnacle of his life, he thought wistfully, would be to listen to it while holding Victor. No – better still, he wanted to dance to it together. He drifted away on the perfumed fumes of the heady fantastic dream, only coming back to himself when he discovered almost too late that he had been on a collision course with a lamppost.

As he reached the other side of the bridge, the campus with its glinting dome ahead, he approached a small group of people sitting on benches or idling against the green metal railing, one of whom appeared to be of Native American heritage. Yuuri remembered passing him a few times before in the city while he’d been jogging with Victor. Maybe he just stood out from the crowd of homeless and unemployed, his appearance being an odd paradox of striking and understated. He was dressed in torn and frayed old denim over a black T-shirt and wearing a pair of gray tennis shoes that might have been white at one time. Despite his shabby appearance, however, he had a long flowing river of hair like a peacock’s fan, meticulously groomed, soft and shining. Yuuri suddenly had an image of him as a 1970s rock star in one of the publicity photos of the time, and it fit so well that he let out an involuntary chuckle. Odd how he felt sure those dark eyes were upon him, and yet every time he glanced over, the man’s face was turned away. Well, a city like this was full of characters. If he were an artist or a photographer, he might be tempted to ask if he could capture the man’s likeness. But he had a long day ahead, and he wanted to review his lesson plan for his class; and so he headed to the gym to get changed, his thoughts elsewhere.

***

Phichit was at his desk when Yuuri entered the office. Yuuri greeted him, not having seen him for a few days, and asked him how work on the camera was going. Phichit told him, and promised to take him on a tour of the Space Propulsion Laboratory once construction of the rover was underway. Every time they discussed their respective projects, Yuuri felt a bubble of excitement about how flink it was that they were here in this place, at the cutting edge of what human beings knew and were on the brink of discovering. It was good for washing away any cynicism, he decided, like a spring clean for the soul.

He settled at his desk with a cup of rosehip tea and idly checked the biochem monitor – all readings normal and healthy, as they had been for weeks. The cravings for sweet, fatty and salty things had long since disappeared as well. In fact, to his surprise, the usual anxiety he felt before having to teach his class was largely absent too, though he took some time to review his notes beforehand so that everything he wanted to discuss was fresh in his mind. He couldn’t recall his heart being so light in a long time.

In the afternoon, a young Native American woman brought her grandfather in as the next volunteer in Yuuri and Victor’s research project, and Yuuri conducted the routine interview, followed by various readings on the lab tech while the shaman went into a trance. This particular subject used a rhythmic beat on a small ancient-looking drum; and while he sat by himself in the dimmed lab as requested, with Yuuri and his granddaughter in the control room, it was easy to fall under the spell of the gentle but insistent noise like a heartbeat. Images like dreams, unbidden, swam up in Yuuri’s mind and lingered, entwining with feelings that seemed to have no connection with what was happening in the room. The hot, baked earth of a parched land peppered with tin shacks. A great city on the sea with skyscrapers…but not Boston. A brief, searing stab of panic. _Run, run for your life._ Melting into something just as intense, but altogether different – surging, pounding sexual need, as he clasped and rocked, and captured yielding lips. Lights shining in the void, conscious and so alive. Then a sudden heaviness, like slipping and falling, as dark eyes burned into him. An electronic explosion that showered a trillion sparks and lit up the land.

Yuuri rested a palm on the countertop and wrapped his other arm around his middle, his head swimming. He took several deep breaths.

“Are you OK?” the woman asked him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I, um…yeah. Sure, I’m fine.” And yet there was no escaping the sense that it was all as real and detailed as memories, despite the knowledge that he’d never been to any of those places or been in situations where he’d experienced those feelings before. If they were nothing but daydreams, they were deceptively vivid.

He stood back up and looked into the dim room. The old man had stopped his drumming and was returning his bewildered stare with a quiet smile.  

***

Yuuri stepped from the Eagle Hill T station into the misty evening rain and put his umbrella up, his Oxfords dragging through puddles as he made his way back to his apartment. He wondered what to share with Victor about their latest volunteer subject. He had plenty of numbers and formulae to analyze, though they seemingly bore no relation to what had happened to him in the control room, and there was no way to prove otherwise. The man had said little before or after, though Yuuri couldn’t help but suspect that there was something playfully knowing in his eyes as he left the building.  

Victor hadn’t been in recently, and as was often the case, he was planning to be in New York over the weekend. Yuuri wondered sometimes what his work at Columbia involved, though the one time he’d asked him, Victor had just replied that he was exploring the symptoms of psychosis. That seemed to be the driving force behind much of his research, yet there was nothing obvious in his life at a glance that explained why he’d chosen that area of specialism. It wasn’t a suitable thing to ask about in casual conversation, either, and Yuuri knew he would hedge around it if Victor asked where his own interest stemmed from, just like he’d done when they’d discussed his dietary preferences.

_I wish we could share more of these things with each other. I think…maybe I could tell you. Sometime. I wish I knew the right things to do to get rid of this barrier between us without wrecking everything else around it in the process._

He was also beginning to miss Victor when he hadn’t seen him for more than a couple of days. Knowing he was away most weekends was hard, because if he ever worked up the courage to ask him on a date, whether he actually called it that or not, it would have been the most convenient time. But just being next to him in the office or the lab, or out jogging…his heart was lighter, and he felt warm and accepted in a way he’d never felt with anyone else.

As usual, however, his thoughts then leaped to the question of what would happen when they completed their study. Because he couldn’t allow himself to be happy more than a moment before sabotaging it, apparently. He sighed and caught sight of the apartment house, poised to shake and close his umbrella as he covered the remaining distance, when he felt a mental tug.

That was the only way to describe it. Like someone pulling gently but noticeably on the end of his sleeve, or laying a hand very lightly on his shoulder. It caught his attention enough that he stopped and stood in confusion, one hand still holding his umbrella and the other loosely curled around the strap of his carryall. He’d never felt this before. What was it? Or had it been his imagination?

With no answers forthcoming, he had decided to ignore it as “just one of those things” when it came again, and this time he caught hold, meeting it with his mind, before it could slip away. Like a thin thread, or a strand of yarn…leading…He turned to his left and gazed through the gray mist at the old wooden houses looming up before him. There were curtains or blinds across the windows; no one was staring out, that he could see. No one on a porch or a balcony or at the top of any stairs, looking down at him. And yet his skin prickled with the knowledge that someone _was_ there. A consciousness of some kind. He squinted as he peered into the dark narrow alleyways between the houses – and spotted a shadow, black among black, of a man leaning against a wall, unmoving.

Yuuri shivered, despite the warmth of the evening, and gripped the umbrella handle tighter, wondering if he should say anything. Normally he would just walk past and let whoever it was mind his own business…but there was no denying that he was picking up on something unusual from this person. That warranted further investigation, surely. He was a scientist, after all.

Before he had a chance to think of anything to say, however, the shadow shifted, and the man emerged from the alley, shuffling toward him with his hands in the pockets of his worn denim jacket. It was the Native American Yuuri had seen on the bridge that morning.

He halted in front of Yuuri, the expression on his face unreadable, though the corners of his mouth were turned up in a kind of amused secret smile. “So you felt it. I haven’t met anyone in a long time who did.” His voice was low and quiet.

“Um…”

“Wow. Sometimes I start to think I’m the only one around here who can do this stuff.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Yuuri decided to say, hoping to draw him out more.

He gave a small laugh. “I knew you were coming, all right. You were as obvious as an ambulance driving down the street, with the siren going and lights flashing. And most people would never even realize.”

Yuuri just shook his head in puzzlement.

“We sensed each other. That’s how it works.”

“You mean…” Yuuri’s stomach did a nervous flip. “…the ESP?”

“Is that what you call it? OK. Yeah.”

“But…I’ve seen you around the city. I never noticed anything then.”

He shrugged. “It’s easier to notice when you’re not busy with something or somebody else. And, uh…I’m subtle, I guess. Not like you. Blue fire, that’s what you are.”

Yuuri’s eyes opened wider, and he shivered again.

“Look, um…it’s kinda wet out here, and I don’t have anyplace to go, so…maybe we could get in the dry for a while? Do you live around here?”

“Uh…yeah. I do, just over there. Sure, you can come in and…and tell me more about all this. I’ve never met anyone else who had this ability. Not, um, physically met, anyway.”

“Thanks.” They began to walk, Yuuri leading the way. “Name’s Crow.”

“Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Obliged.”

They got to the building and Yuuri let them in, then went up the stairs and opened the door to his apartment. “Have you got someplace to stay?” he asked, dropping his carryall to the floor and slinging his suit coat as usual on the back of a chair.

“Not these days. I hang around a lot.”

He was standing in the middle of the room, again with his hands in his pockets, his denim clothes showing dark patches where they’d been dampened by the rain. They were worn almost threadbare, Yuuri noticed, and he was very thin, with hollows under his cheekbones. He felt haunted looking at him, though there was also that lingering sense of connection, like a static hum always in the background. Yuuri could sense it more easily now, as if they were two beacons glowing at a distance in the night. With a start, he realized he felt something similar during his ESP sessions when he was with another presence; he’d just never expected it to happen in physical reality with a flesh-and-blood person nearby.

_So now that he’s here, what do I do? Maybe he really is homeless. Do I give him some food and a place to stay for a while?_ Yuuri had never welcomed a stranger into his apartment like this before. And though they had something intriguing in common…he felt uncomfortable about the situation, even if he couldn’t exactly explain why. Maybe it was just because he was a plank and not used to doing this kind of thing.

“You’re welcome to have a seat at the table over here while I get something to eat,” he said, and Crow did so with a nod. He had a way of moving without making a sound, like he was somehow not entirely present, barely making a mark on his surroundings. “What do you like to eat?”

“I’m grateful for anything you’ve got, Dr. Katsuki.”

“Yuuri.”

He cooked a beef and broccoli stir fry, and they sat at the little table and ate, Crow tucking voraciously into his food as if he hadn’t had a good meal in a long time.

“I don’t recall mentioning I was a doctor,” Yuuri commented.

“Hm?” Crow looked at him for a moment. “Oh, well,” he said with a shrug, getting back to his food, “I saw you jogging over to the university this morning, and you went inside, so I just figured.”

“Strange how we keep coming across each other like that.”

Crow gave him the ghost of a grin. “Maybe the…ESP, as you call it, draws people together like a magnet. It’s a unique kind of connection to have with someone.” His dark eyes, almost black, flicked up and held Yuuri’s.

“You know…a lot of what I do involves neurological research. Studying the brain. It’s difficult to do it on myself, and it’s obviously a conflict of interest where studies are concerned, but – ”

“If you’re trying to get me into this lab of yours, I’m sorry but it’s not my kind of thing. I won’t set foot in a place like that.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said, feeling suddenly deflated. “It’s just…I’m sure there’s so much that could be learned. I’ve always wanted to know how the ESP works.”

“And you think your technology is gonna answer that for you?” He gave a little derisory snort.

Yuuri put his fork down. “All right, then. Maybe you could tell me what you know. Or – or show me what you can do. I’ve been by myself with this all my life. Maybe we could learn something from each other.”

Crow finished his last bite of food and smiled. “Maybe we could. That is…if you don’t mind me being here. I seriously have nowhere to go, though in a couple of days I was hoping to have something worked out with the housing association. What do you reckon – you put me up for a few nights, and we do some experimenting here together?”

Though he wasn’t sure he liked the way Crow had phrased it, Yuuri nodded. This was too good and rare an opportunity to pass up. And he seemed to be in need of help. Yuuri had never reached out to anyone like this before. How hard was it to give a person down on their luck some simple necessities of life for a little while, anyway?

Crow held his gaze. “Thanks. That’s…that’s a heckofa lot more than most people would be willing to do. I really am obliged.” His expression was grateful and friendly, though there was also something catlike about him that didn’t sit very well with the rest – the way his movements were slow and deliberating; or the delicate, almost preening gestures he made with his hands, which fit with the beautiful mane of hair but not the denim and tennis shoes. “You’re a nice jack. There’s not many of those around.”

Yuuri just looked down at the table. Hardly anyone ever spent the night here with him. Not long ago, it had been Victor. Now Crow. But he would much rather have Victor here again. And what would he say about this anyway, if he found out that Yuuri had asked a handsome young stranger to come in off the streets and stay with him for a few days? In all honesty, however, even though Crow needed shelter, the deciding factor was the ESP. If that meant he was only doing this for his own selfish ends, so be it. He’d had so many questions and so few answers over the years.    

“I see you’ve got Brainquake over there. Why don’t we try that for starters?”

Yuuri sat up and followed his gaze to the shelf in the living area. “Oh, that thing. More trouble than it’s worth, if you ask me. I used to train with it, but I haven’t touched it in ages.” _Apart from when I was pulled into playing it with Victor, which I never wanted to do in the first place. It raises too many questions. And I don’t know what he’d make of the ESP. Would he even believe me, or just think I was fragged?_

But Crow understood. And maybe he’d give him the first challenge he’d had in years. “Though on second thought, it could be interesting.” He cleared their dinner things away from the table, brought the box over and set up the simple apparatus, switching the light on so that it glowed white.

“Why don’t you be blue,” Crow suggested. “That’s how I’ll have to think of you.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What made you say, when we were outside, that I was…that I had some kind of blue fire?”

Crow’s eyes were penetrating as they looked into him. “You don’t _have_ it. That’s who you _are_. Can’t you see it for yourself?”

Yuuri shook his head in confusion.

“If your physical body burned away right now…which would be a shame…that’s what would be left of you.”

“H-How do you see something like that?”

Crow had been looking somewhat impatient, but now he smirked. “Close your eyes and relax. Open your inner vision and look at my heart. Tell me what you see.”

That sounded uncomfortably intimate…but then again, how was it any different from what he did with the presences in his ESP sessions? It always involved experiencing more than what the physical world had to offer. He followed the instructions, taking several deep breaths and descending into a light trance, though it was not going to be as effective as what he would achieve if he were by himself. And then he sent his consciousness out, roving, seeking this man called Crow. The first real name of anyone he’d ever worked with in this way.

Yuuri found him, though he sensed he _wanted_ to be found, and it probably helped that he was in such close physical proximity. But what he met with was strange; reminiscent of a Victorian dark lantern. There was a bright flame inside – yellow? – but it was shuttered by shades so black that they absorbed any light that fell upon them. And the flame itself was throwing out so much soot that you would hardly know there was any light at all behind the cloud. There was layer upon smothering layer here, though surprisingly the bright fire at the core still burned. Yuuri sensed it, but experiencing it from the outside was like trying to see in a room lit by the dying splutter of a tea candle in one forgotten corner.

He pulled away, disconcerted, then brought himself out of the trance and opened his eyes, to find a pair of dark ones looking steadily back at him.

“I’ve never met anyone who shines as bright as you,” Crow breathed quietly. Then he coughed and straightened. “Tell me, then – what color?”

“Um…well, it was kind of…there were things in the way, dimming it. But yellow.”

The eyes flashed, and he fidgeted for a moment. “Yeah. Well, you got it right. Do you want to try this game, then?”

“OK. On the count of three?”

“You’re on.”

“One…two…”

When Yuuri got to three, he knew he had a split-second’s disadvantage because he’d been counting rather than gathering his concentration. He felt Crow grant him that time to compose himself – before he ripped it away from him and took complete dominance. Yuuri had never felt anything like it. He might as well have been thoroughly pinned to the floor by some mountainous wrestler, unable to move a single limb. The light shone crimson in front of him.

“H-How…” was all he could say.

“Guess I’ve had a lot of practice,” Crow replied with an indifferent shrug. “Want to try again? Take a minute to relax first, then I’ll count.”

Yuuri nodded and took more deep breaths, the shock of what had just occurred making it difficult for him to focus. He swallowed and said, “OK, I’m ready.”

Crow counted; and when he got to three, there wasn’t even a pause this time before the light turned decisively crimson. Yuuri again had the feeling that he’d been beaten into submission, and could almost imagine it being followed by an amused laugh; though Crow made no sound as he sat staring across from him as if to say, _It’s no big deal, is it? I must just be lucky._

“Well…I obviously need more practice myself.” He stood, put the game back in its box, and replaced it on the shelf. _Shit, that was…that was scary. Maybe I’m too used to winning all the time, maybe that’s what it is._

He said he needed to review some of his students’ papers; it was true, but he felt like he needed a break as well. When he asked Crow if he was chipped, he answered in the affirmative, which was a relief, because he wasn’t sure what he had in the way of other entertainment for a guest. Wondering what else he ought to do as a host, he offered to wash Crow’s clothes for him, which was also accepted, and let him borrow some of his own, tracksuit bottoms and a white T-shirt. While Crow did whatever he chose to do on his chip as he sat on the sofa, Yuuri stood in a corner of the kitchenette with a tablet, the washing machine humming next to him.

He was suddenly struck by how alone he felt in the presence of this person. That in itself was odd enough; though since they both had ESP abilities, he’d initially thought – naïvely, no doubt – that they would walk in here behaving like boys in a candy shop, everything an exciting discovery. But he was still determined to learn what he could from his visitor while he had the opportunity.

Eventually he turned the tablet off and joined Crow in the living area, perching on the edge of an overstuffed chair that matched the sofa. Crow lost the vacant stare of one who was accessing his chip and met his eyes.

“I was wondering how you make use of your ESP,” Yuuri said. “What kinds of things do you do with it? You said you hadn’t met anyone in a long time who had it – does that mean you’ve known people like that in the past?”

“In a way…It does different things for different people. Though if you’re hoping you’ll eventually have superpowers or something, I can’t help you there.”

Yuuri chuckled. “No, I’m not expecting that.”

“What do _you_ do with it, Yuuri?” His gaze was intent again.

Disappointed that Crow wasn’t more forthcoming, he told him about his ESP sessions – helping the newly awakened, presences he’d already met contacting him. Communication without language. How Dove had shown him how to go “into” an object. He didn’t see any reason to hide anything, hoping Crow might jump in at some point and say he did those things too; though he simply sat and listened.

“Newly awakened, huh. Do you know anything about who or where they are?”

“Not a thing. And I wish I knew _how_ they awakened. They always seem to be surprised it happened, and they don’t know what to do. The ones who find me, anyway. It was the same for me when I was young, so it’s nice to think I might be able to help people in a similar situation.”

“Very neighborly of you.”

“So…how about you?” Yuuri coaxed quietly. “Do you do anything like that yourself? Or is it completely different?”

“Tell you what. You said language seems clumsy when we can do this stuff instead. So let’s do it. We can make a connection and learn more about each other that way.”

“How do you mean?” Yuuri looked at him warily.

“Come sit next to me.” Noticing Yuuri’s reaction, he said, “Don’t be so jittery. I won’t bite. I just need to be able to put a hand on your chest, and you’re too far away over there.”

Yuuri’s dinner had not been digesting well; it was impossible to feel at ease with this man. But, his curiosity overriding all else once more, he moved to sit next to him. Crow lifted a thin hand and placed it over Yuuri’s heart; Yuuri felt its heat through the thin fabric of his shirt. Then Crow tried to look into his eyes again, while Yuuri fought the instinct to pull away.

“If you want to do this, I need you to cooperate,” Crow said simply.

Yuuri briefly closed his eyes to take a deep breath, then opened them and stared back into those dark eyes with determination.

“You’re not trying to beat me at Brainquake now, either; this isn’t a competition. Honestly, just take it easy. If you can.”

Yuuri nodded and gradually banished some of the tension from his body. It started to feel like he was traveling; drifting. Taken into his thoughts and memories. Though he felt the presence of Crow with him, like an eye. Deciding to follow where this led rather than trying to guide it, he was his seven-year-old self again, shaking and crying in bed at night because it felt like he was leaving or being dragged out of his body to someplace that was dark and strange and dangerous. Or he was in the middle of the most mundane daily task, like eating lunch or doing his schoolwork, when he would become conscious of ghosts or spirits or something trying to scream at him, in his head. Then the trips to the doctors began; the somber diagnoses, the medications that had suppressed whatever danced inside of him. Surrounded by people, he was utterly alone. And the attacks continued…until help came unexpectedly. Presences that were friendly and helpful rather than terrifying, and some in the physical world who were finally able to help.

_[One of my own people.]_

_[Yes,]_ Yuuri sent, already exhausted from the effort of reliving these things, however briefly.

_[This American culture doesn’t understand how to deal with people like us.]_

_[That’s very true.]_

_[Mine is better, but they betrayed me.]_

_[Show me?]_

They tumbled out of Yuuri’s memories; out of Yuuri altogether. Like a pendulum under its own momentum, they swung as one into Crow’s sphere of consciousness. Yuuri got the impression this was not planned; that Crow was as surprised as he was, and did not want Yuuri to be here. But before Yuuri could think what to do, he was seeing Crow as a boy, spending long empty hours on an arid reservation. There were flickers of faces devoid of hope in trailer homes and small wood and brick ranch houses. Yuuri knew some reservations had been revitalized in the past few decades, but not all; and clearly not this one. Here, alcohol was an anaesthetic, and a once-proud culture was dying. Though a few embers yet remained, passed from generation to generation, so that they might not disappear altogether.

None of the reservations Yuuri had visited to recruit volunteers for his study had been like this, and his heart went out to the boy and his people. And now Crow was living on the streets here in Boston. Such a hard life, and he was young yet.

He felt another tug in that moment, deep within. Like…something had latched onto him and was drawing energy out. It was strange more than threatening; perhaps what having a baby at the breast might be like, one sharing and the other receiving, while there was plenty to give. But what was happening?

Bright white light was flowing from him to Crow. He realized he himself had initiated it, with his warm feelings about the boy and his reservation. Something inside of Crow had grabbed hold and taken and wanted more, and more, and more. Yuuri allowed it for a while, until he had no more to give without hurting.

_[Stop,]_ he sent.

_[No – I need it.]_

_[STOP.]_ Yuuri mentally slapped him away, and he could feel Crow recoiling. He hadn’t planned any of this, either, it seemed.

But they weren’t done with Crow’s past, as more images flashed. In his culture, his ESP abilities were welcomed as the awakening of a shaman. Yuuri witnessed attempts to train him – but something was wrong. They were failing. They told him he was unsuitable. So rare to see such concrete images this way, and Yuuri couldn’t remember receiving words at all until now – but one had cut and burrowed and scarred, and Yuuri could almost see it as a knife embedded in a fresh bloody wound. _Unstable._

But just as Crow had wrested control of the Brainquake light so easily from him, he now tore them both away from it all. Yuuri felt an actual pain shoot down his chest as his trance was ended abruptly, and he opened his eyes to find Crow panting in front of him, his expression thunderous, his hands now resting in his lap. Yuuri instinctively flinched backwards, but as quickly as it had come the look faded, as Crow mastered whatever feelings were flooding through him.

“I’m sorry,” was all Yuuri could think to say.

“Don’t…don’t mention it,” Crow muttered, gazing down and fingering the bottom of Yuuri’s T-shirt that he was wearing. “Look, I’m tired after all that. I guess you must be too.”

“Yeah. Um, about the morning…”

“If I leave when you do, could I come back for another night? Just until I get someplace to stay sorted out?”

“One more night? Yeah, that’s OK.” Though the thought of it wasn’t a pleasant one.

He told the Friday to lock his bedroom door when he went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqwa9x8f0a8%E2%80%9D>%E2%80%9CRhapsody%20on%20a%20Theme%20of%20Paganini) by Rachmaninoff


	13. Chapter 13

Yuuri made omelets for breakfast and gave Crow his clean clothes back. There was little discussion between them, though Crow kept looking at him oddly, seemingly with a mixture of wariness and incredulity. Maybe he was embarrassed about what had happened the night before. Well, there was no need to be, though Yuuri felt unsettled about the whole situation. He wasn’t sure that the little he’d learned about ESP from Crow had been worth welcoming him into his apartment for, homeless or not. They went their separate ways after Yuuri told him he could arrive at six o’clock or later that evening.

One more day without Victor, and then they would see each other tomorrow before he went to New York. It seemed to Yuuri like an age. Feeling like he’d hardly slept, his feet took him where he needed to go, while his thoughts strayed continually to the beautiful man who had come to be such an important part of his life.

_Why can’t I just take a chance, like other people would? Ask him on a nice date, try kissing him, and live with whatever consequences follow._

_Because I don’t know if I_ can _live with certain consequences._

He wished he’d had more practice at this kind of thing. Most people had, by his age.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered what it would be like to blatantly summon a hologram of Victor in his living room for the dance program. Doing and saying exactly what Yuuri wanted him to. No awkward moments, no rejections. A wave of heat surged through him, followed by one of shame as he thought about how inappropriate that would be. He stared out of the vacant window of the T-train as it went through a tunnel, glad Victor would never be aware of the things that were going through his head right now.

No; if he wanted to be in that kind of scenario, it had to happen in real life, with the real Victor. But the anxious part of him that always lurked like the mud at the bottom of a lake stirred at this, and threw up a variety of possible negative outcomes.

_Yuuri, I was only trying to be friendly. I’m sorry if it seemed like anything more._

_This is just how I am. Everyone else understands that. I didn’t realize I was confusing you._

_You’re not my type. I like confident men, not ones who run away and hide in a corner when things get tough._

_Lose some weight and ask me again, and I might think about it. Fat people aren’t attractive._

Though the last one was the most ridiculous of all, because Yuuri knew he was at a normal, healthy weight. It was one thing his biochem monitor showed him when he checked it daily. If there was ever any evidence of how illogical the anxious voice could be, that was it.

The voice wasn’t done yet, though. As the train slowed down, nearing the Kendall Square station, it put him straight in a scene where he had been dancing with Victor and decided it was the perfect romantic moment to dip him and kiss him; only, when his lips neared Victor’s, the other man simply stared at him with a quiet look of incredulity and horror.

_Fuck. Why do I do this to myself?_

Maybe, in time, if Victor didn’t grow old or find somebody more…normal and clued up, he’d get the courage from somewhere. Though god knew how.

Phichit was in the office again when he arrived. “Hi,” Yuuri said as he got himself settled in. “Everything OK over at the SPL?”

“Yeah, great,” Phichit said as he sipped at some tea and reviewed something on a tablet. “I don’t do a whole lot of work over there, though. As exciting as it is, I’ve only got a small job. I’ve still got to go around the campus today and fix some things, so I thought I’d hit base today first and get organized.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Yuuri checked the biochem monitor. The inescapable conclusion was that his system was slightly stressed. What exactly had Crow done to him; taken from him? He had the feeling that he’d stopped him with time left to spare, whatever it was; but the ridiculous image of Count Dracula from an old 1930s film, vaguely penguin-like in his aristocratic clothing, came to mind.

“How’s things with Victor?”

Before Yuuri could satisfy his friend’s unending curiosity, a message came for him over his chip. It was Victor. _Can I call you on your tablet?_

_Sure,_ Yuuri messaged back, taking the main one he used out of his carryall and switching it on, then leaning over at his desk and waiting for the call to come through. When it did, he touched the screen, and Victor’s face appeared. He was sitting at his desk in his own office. Yuuri couldn’t help but return his grin. Out of the corner of his eye, Phichit gave him a smile and a thumbs-up, then gestured questioningly at himself and then the door. Yuuri shook his head.

“Yuuri, how are you?” came Victor’s canned voice from the tablet. This one wasn’t designed for sound and had the most basic speakers. You could get special tablets for video conferencing alone, but he’d never felt the need for any such thing. Messaging was his preferred option most of the time. Though it sent his heart suddenly soaring to unexpectedly be talking to Victor like this.

“Hi, Victor. Is everything OK?”

“You always ask that when I contact you,” he said in a mock-chiding voice. “Can’t I just say hi once in a while?”

“Well…sure. Hi.” Yuuri felt mystified, and his pulse was starting to race. He could feel heat filling his cheeks.

“You know, I’m going to have another look at my schedule and see what I can rearrange. It’s no good, me being away from MIT several days in a row like this when we have such important research to do together.”

“I wouldn’t want you to – ”

“ _I_ want me to. I’ll see what I can do.”

“OK.”

“What have you been up to, then?”

Yuuri told him. He didn’t mention Crow. Then Victor filled him in on his research at Harvard. “Though it’s not as interesting as what you and I are doing. We ought to talk about how we want to conduct the second part of the study soon; get some firmer ideas together based on how the first part’s going.”

“Sure; we can talk about that tomorrow, if you want.”

There was a pause as Victor looked at him. “I found out something interesting here this morning. Apparently the biology department’s been working on ways to use bioluminescence for lighting. It’s not a new concept, but it’s taken a while for it to be cheap and simple enough to give solar and wind power a challenge. They’ve been putting up a display somewhere called ‘the Common,’ and over the next three nights people can go and have a walk around it. They’re making it into a kind of lantern festival crossed with an expo. So I was thinking…since I’ll be in New York over the weekend, would you like to go have a look with me tomorrow night? Maybe have a bite to eat after work first?”

Yuuri gave him a crooked smile. He heard noises indicating that Phichit was shifting in his chair, but didn’t want to be distracted by looking over. “Wow, that, uh…that sounds great. I’d like that. If you’re not too busy, that is. Sounds like a lot to fit into your schedule.”

“Not at all. I’ll look forward to it.”

They said their goodbyes, and as soon as Yuuri switched off his tablet, Phichit clapped his hands together and laughed loudly. “Whoa cow, Yuuri – he asked you on a date!”

Yuuri could feel the heat in his cheeks rising. “I don’t know if I’d call it that.”

“What _else_ would you call it? Dinner and this festival thing?”

“We do lots of stuff together,” Yuuri said with a huff. “That’s what happens sometimes, when you work closely with someone on a study.” _Presumably. Not that I’d know from experience._ “He even spent the night at my apartment once, after we’d been working late – ” At the expected gasp he added, “ – and nothing happened. OK? So don’t get like that.”

Phichit shook his head and laughed. “I think he really likes you.”

“I wish I knew for sure.”

“Well at some point, one of you is going to have to take a chance on it. Yuuri, do you really want him to be here doing all this stuff with you, only to disappear at the end because there’s no reason for him to stick around?”

Yuuri’s heart sank, and he rested his head in a hand as he leaned over his desk. “Wow, Phichit, way to make me feel good. You know how shit I am at this.”

“I think one thing that might help more than anything else,” Phichit said gently, “is if you just went easier on yourself and tried to be positive.”

Yuuri sighed and frowned. “Is _that_ all.”

***

When he returned to the apartment house that evening, there was no sign of Crow outside. He let himself in the front door and climbed the stairs to find Ed, the occupant of the apartment across the hall from his own, emerging. Yuuri tried not to be rude to anyone, but he’d seen from the outset that they had little in common. Ed was a sports trainer and massive Patriots fan who had loud football viewing parties at his place most Sundays. Yuuri always made sure he had someplace else to go then, even if it was to do research or grade papers in the coffee house around the corner.

“Hey, Yuuri,” he said, waggling his eyebrows in what Yuuri assumed was meant to be a friendly gesture. “What’s doin’, eh?”

“Hi, Ed. Just getting back from work. Um, you OK?”

“Sure, sure, can’t complain. Hey – he shoots he scores, eh?”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean?”

Ed nodded toward the door of Yuuri’s apartment. “That bo you got in there. Real looker, he is. Good on ya, jack; it’s about time you found somebody.” He gave Yuuri a playful punch on his arm.

“What?” Before Ed could reply, he shot over to his door, which opened automatically in front of him, and dashed inside and stared around. There was an aroma of tomatoes, beef and cumin in the air. He spotted Crow in the kitchenette, dressed in the habitual denim, standing over the hob and stirring something in a pot.

“How did you get in here?” he gasped.

Crow turned and flashed him a smile. “Hey. I thought I’d repay the favor from last night. Hope you’re hungry.”

Yuuri dropped his carryall on the floor and tentatively approached. “How did you get _in_ here?” he repeated.

“Well I was waiting outside, and your landlady came along. I told her I was staying with you, and she said she’d seen me come in here with you last night, so she let me in.”

Yuuri considered this and thought it extremely unlikely, especially since the property owners rarely paid visits to this particular house anyway, with most of Eagle Hill in their portfolio. Could he have hacked the Friday? How, from outside the apartment? But how else would he have gotten the door open? He hadn’t noticed any damage when he’d walked in. Jimmied a window? No; they were on the third floor. That uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach had returned.

“I don’t know what you’ve been used to where you’ve lived before,” Yuuri said to him, “but people here generally don’t let themselves into other people’s homes without asking.”

“But I did ask. You said I could come back tonight,” Crow said as he stirred what appeared to be a pot of chili. “If I overstepped the mark, I apologize. No offense intended.”

Yuuri walked over to the little dining table, hung his suit coat on a chair and sat down slowly, casting a discerning eye around the apartment. Nothing seemed to have been moved or damaged. What would someone else do in this situation? Maybe he ought to just tell Crow to leave, right now. But he was cooking them a meal, and well…it would just be one more night. Maybe they could try doing something else with the ESP. Though considering where it had led the night before, Yuuri questioned whether it was a good idea.

He pulled some bowls and cutlery out and they ate mostly in silence, Crow having made rice to go with his chili, Yuuri eating his as it was. He had to admit it wasn’t bad, though kidney beans weren’t something he normally had, and his body would probably protest later. Crow had obviously picked up a few ingredients like that from somewhere, maybe the market, to toss in.

“While the food’s going down, I could do with reviewing some stuff for work,” Yuuri said after he’d cleared the bowls away. “Have you got things you can do on your chip?”

“Sure. You get on with whatever you need to do,” Crow replied, taking his position of the previous night on the sofa.

Yuuri worked on his tablet in the kitchen, willing the time to pass quickly. What did you do with a houseguest who wasn’t entirely welcome, and wasn’t a friend? How far should you extend generosity to someone off the street, especially when they entered your home uninvited?

“You can come in here and work, you know,” came Crow’s voice after a while. “Instead of standing in there. It’s not like it’s going to distract me or anything.”

Yuuri thought for a moment, then turned his tablet off and put it in his carryall, and sat down in the chair by the sofa. Crow fixed him with a stare, which he tried to ignore. He felt a tingling at the base of his spine. “So after tonight,” Yuuri said, “is there a place you can stay?”

There was a long pause while he waited for an answer. The tingling worked its way up and started growing into a warmth spreading through his body. “The housing association is still working on it,” Crow said. “So not yet, no. But I won’t ask to impose on your hospitality anymore after tonight. I’m used to it, anyway.”

The warmth swirled and pooled in Yuuri’s abdomen, and caressed through his arms and legs. He had the urge to lean back and hum in pleasure. His breathing quickened, and he felt himself starting to get hard.

_What the hell?_

Then he realized – this wasn’t coming from inside of him. While Crow was good-looking, Yuuri didn’t feel attracted to him in that way. In fact, the more time he spent around him, the more repulsed he was. So what was going on? When he looked into Crow’s eyes, he discovered a knowing amusement, and a heat there as well.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Crow said with a low laugh.

“What are you doing?” Yuuri said, trying to wrest control back from his body’s wayward responses.

“I learned a lot about you when we were connected last night, Yuuri. How you like other men. How you’re…someone special. We have a lot in common. Don’t you feel it too?” Yuuri felt a throb of desire in his groin as Crow added in a purr, “Would you like to find out what sex is like when we’re both doing this? It will…blow your mind.” The last words were drawn out in almost a whisper, laden with promise.

With a sudden effort, as if waking from a dream with a start, Yuuri jumped out of his chair. He felt violated; like Crow had reached roots down into him like a weed. He wanted to pull every last one of them out. No one, _no one_ , had the right to do what this man had been doing, from the moment he’d entered Yuuri’s apartment.  

“No, I don’t. I don’t like what you’re doing right now, and I don’t like how you found some way to get in here earlier. I’m sorry, but I think you need to leave.”

The same thunderous expression he’d seen the night before, just after their connection had been broken, stole across Crow’s face. In fact, it wouldn’t have been exaggerating to say that those eyes were full of murderous intent for just a moment, so blazing were they. Yuuri felt a dart of terror pass through him, and he wondered how he should go about calling the police over his chip; he’d never had occasion to do so before. But as quickly as the storm had arrived, it dissipated; and Crow had a demure, apologetic air as he stood.

“Well…I’m sorry if I caused any offense. I didn’t mean – ”

“Just go,” Yuuri said firmly. He strode to the door and opened it wide.

Crow had the nerve to look shocked, as if he couldn’t comprehend the vehemence of Yuuri’s response, though he followed. As he was passing through the doorway, he paused, and Yuuri felt another nip of fear.

“Thanks for letting me stay. I hope it meant as much to you as it did to me. Goodbye, Yuuri.” He held Yuuri’s eyes for a moment, then disappeared down the stairs. There was the sound of the front door opening and closing, and Yuuri moved to the French windows to catch a glimpse of Crow shuffling away down the street. With a deep sigh, he leaned back against the glass.

_Letting him in here in the first place was probably the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done._

Clearly, not everyone with ESP was going to be like himself or the presences he met in his personal sessions, the vast majority of whom were friendly, even delightful, to be with. He’d been vulnerable in his enthusiasm to physically meet someone else who could do what he did; who understood. He’d been naïve. Well…there didn’t seem to have been any harm done, and if anything, he’d learned his lesson.

It would be safer to stick with the presences from now on.


	14. Chapter 14

Being with Victor at the university the next day was the sweetest balm. Crow was banished to the corners of Yuuri’s mind while he spent most of his time focused on his research and his partner. When they finished work, Victor asked Yuuri to choose where he wanted to eat, so they went to a Korean barbecue place nearby. They walked from there to the festival, the evening being room-temperature comfortable with a soft breeze, and a sharp-edged full moon rising over the harbor that silvered Victor’s hair and skin. When they arrived at the Common, Yuuri insisted on paying their entrance fee since Victor had paid for the meal. The paths everywhere were overlaid with ribbons of starlight, and it seemed to either drip from the trees like elven magic, or the leaves themselves were aglow, shimmering blue and green; though this was from huge potted plants that had obviously been brought in for the festival. There was a hush to the milling crowd, as if they were sharing in the warmth and relaxation of a bonfire’s mesmerizing flames.

Yuuri and Victor gasped in wonder at shining dragons, one of them positioned as if it were zigzagging its way through the pond, gold with red spikes on its back and a billowing tail. They passed palaces with onion domes, animals of all descriptions, characters from fairy tales, pagodas, luminous green frogs on lilypads. In the middle of a “forest” of tree sculptures, they paused to look around. The trees themselves were made of some kind of opaque paper, the sinewy trunks softly illuminated from within, branches sporting huge round white and pink blossoms. Victor reflected pools of colored light everywhere they walked; and here his hair, skin and shirt were aglow in soft pink. And yet no matter what tried to compete with them, those eyes remained such a pure, clear blue. They were looking warmly into his own now.

Yuuri felt a fluttering in his chest. “Victor,” he whispered. _I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I want to wrap my arms around you. Thread my fingers through your hair. Kiss you and never stop._ But words stuck in his throat. If he couldn’t talk, he had to act. He had to do _something._ He raised his hand and placed it gently on Victor’s upper arm, glancing down and then back, holding Victor’s gaze, slowly leaning in closer, tilting his chin up. His heart was hammering now. _I’m going to do this, I swear –_

“Look, there’s Dr. Nikiforov; maybe he can help.”

Yuuri’s hand dropped away, and he and Victor both turned to the owner of the voice and his companion, trotting toward them.

“Doctor,” one of them said; a young man with curly blond hair, “we’ve been trying to find someone here who can help a woman who’s been injured. We’ve called an ambulance, but they’ve told us there’s a public disturbance going on in town, and we’re going to have to wait. I don’t know – ”

“I’m not a medical doctor, John; you know that,” Victor said, looking at him with a frown.

“Her friend says they were both climbing the fence to get in without paying when she fell from the top and hit her head on a rock when she landed. She had some kind of seizure and then was out cold. We haven’t found an MD yet, but if there’s anything you know about – ”

“Where is she?”

“Come on, I’ll take you there.”

“Yuuri, will you come too?” Victor said, his expression urgent as he grabbed Yuuri’s arm and then pulled him along, the four of them skirting the edge of the crowd as they ran.

“What can _I_ do?” Yuuri asked as Victor’s hand fell away and he dashed along behind. _What can_ you _do, for that matter?_

“We’ll see when we get there. Have you got the biochem monitor on you?”

“Yeah, in my carryall.”

“And has it, by any chance, been designed to detect physical injury?”

“Yes.”

Victor glanced back at him in relief. “In that case, you may just end up being responsible for saving someone’s life.”

“If you want to use it on the injured party, I’d have to get clearance from the emergency services to use it on someone without their permission, otherwise it won’t function.”

“As fast as you can, then.”

Yuuri had never done this, but double-checked how on his chip, then made the necessary call, and had just been given permission to go ahead when they were led to where an unconscious young woman with long chestnut hair lay on the grass. Someone had placed a jacket behind her head. There was no obviously better place nearby to move her, and a small crowd had gathered. A woman with a blond pixie cut was kneeling next to her, sobbing.

“Can you move her and the other people here out of the way?” Victor said quietly to the man he’d addressed before as John, and he and his companion did as Victor asked.

“Get the biochem monitor out,” Victor said to Yuuri. “I need a light of some kind too. If you don’t have one, I’ve got one in my bag.”

“I’ve got a small flashlight in here,” Yuuri said, rummaging around; he produced that and the monitor.

“Did anyone think to pick the rock up – the one she hit her head on?” Victor asked John, looking over at him. The woman who had been crying shook her head. “Never mind.” His voice was measured; calm. Yuuri couldn’t understand how he was managing it. He was running his fingertips carefully, gently over the unconscious woman’s head. “Here’s where it must’ve hit. No blood. Possible subdural haematoma then, leading to the seizure. Yuuri, what’s the biochem monitor telling you about her injury?”

He held it up. “It says it’s a closed depressed fracture of the front parietal bone.”

“It could be worse, then, but there might be bone fragments embedded in the brain tissue. That’ll need attention right away.” He opened a pocket in his canvas bag on the ground next to him and removed a device shaped like a pen – obviously the form of choice where his gadgets were concerned – and told Yuuri to shine his flashlight on the site of the injury, while at the same time keeping a careful eye on the biochem monitor’s readings to see if they changed at any point.

“Victor,” Yuuri said in a low voice, “we’re scientists, not brain surgeons! How – ”

Victor gave him a sharp look. “When you’re done telling me what I can or can’t do, are you going to help me?”

_This is…I can’t believe we’re doing this._ But Yuuri looked into those eyes, and saw that Victor was confident and assured in the procedure he was planning to perform. How and why this could be, he was at a loss to understand, but he trusted him, and nodded.

Victor switched the pen on, and Yuuri saw it was a precision surgeon’s laser. _Why is he carrying one of those around with him?_ Yuuri kept his eyes glued to the biochem monitor, his skin creeping with the knowledge that right in front of him Victor was cutting straight through a woman’s skull and into her brain. It gave him readings on blood pressure, intravascular pressure and brainwave status that he relayed at intervals when asked.

“I really need to be able to see what I’m doing on a screen,” Victor muttered. “That makes this harder than it should be. But if it’s done soon after the injury, it can prevent a fatal intracranial haemorrhage or edema. The fact that she had a seizure already indicates that some damage has been done, so if this doesn’t heal it, at the very least it should prevent more.” He seemed to be finding comfort in words, even though Yuuri did nothing but make small noises to show he was listening. “Let me know the second you get any indication she might be coming around, like brainwave changes. I can’t do this if she’s waking up.”

“OK.”

“I can see some lesions here. The laser ablation should allow them to heal naturally. The bone fragments can simply stay where they are until a surgeon can remove them. I wish I had a way of doing that myself, but it really will require an operating suite and proper equipment. The laser cauterizes as it works, at least, so she won’t be left with an open wound.”

Eventually the faint humming noise of the laser ceased, and Victor said, “That’s all I can do. Any sign of the EMTs yet?”

Yuuri looked up from the biochem monitor. “I guess not.” The small crowd was still staring from a distance as they were kept at bay.

Victor looked at the woman and stroked her hair back. “Why would you go and do such a ridiculous thing, eh?” he said quietly. “Was it worth risking your life for?”

They watched her for another couple of minutes, the other two men and the woman’s friend returning when they saw Victor was done. Then Yuuri noticed a change in her brainwaves and saw that she was beginning to move. “Victor,” he said simply.

Victor placed a hand on her chest to prevent her from trying to get up. “Just lie still; you’ve been hurt. How do you feel?”

Her brown eyes opened and looked at him. “I’ve got a headache.”

“How bad?”

“It hurts here.” She placed a hand over the side of her head where she’d been wounded.

“Is it like a migraine, or – ”

“No, just sore. What happened?”

They spoke for a moment, Victor obviously searching for further clues about the nature of any damage she’d suffered. Then the ambulance approached slowly along the starry path and several EMTs emerged. Yuuri stood apart and watched Victor explain to them what had occurred and what he’d done. They took the woman into the ambulance on a stretcher, her friend climbing into the back with her.

_We’ve been trained to study the brain, not operate on it,_ Yuuri thought as he stood with his arms folded across his chest. _It takes years to qualify as a brain surgeon. There’s no literature at all out there that says anything about work he’s done in this area, and I should know. Why has he never said?_

But whatever the reasons were, Yuuri was nevertheless filled with admiration. Victor was talented, compassionate…and out of his league, as he’d told himself before and should’ve remembered. It was a stroke of luck that he’d been stopped from making a fool of himself by kissing him.  

***

They had gone their separate ways at the T station after the incident, both of them tired after what had occurred, and Victor having to get up early to fly to New York. He’d thanked Yuuri for his help, but would not give a straight answer to any of his questions about where he’d learned the skills he’d just demonstrated. He tried to make it sound as if it was no big deal, just part and parcel of what he’d had to pick up at various points in his career; but the flimsy words only emphasized the ridiculousness of the claim. And he seemed to know that Yuuri knew it. Clearly he was uncomfortable with the topic, though, and Yuuri let it drop.

He continued to muse about it over the weekend, however – when he was alone in his apartment; when he was out jogging; while he sat with his tablet sipping peppermint tea in the coffee shop Sunday afternoon.

_Victor isn’t the only one with secrets,_ he told himself while he cupped his warm mug and idly watched pedestrians slosh through the gray shower outside the window next to him. _I don’t know what he’d make of mine._ They’d only been acquainted for what, ten weeks or so? Their relationship was still new, and…undefined. Yuuri felt something wonderful shining at its heart, but it was diffuse around the edges, so difficult to grasp. 

Yuuri _wanted_ to grasp it. Wanted to believe he could be…enough. But was that possible? How could he even dare to hope? He’d been burned that way when he was younger. When he’d experimented with flattering clothes, make-up, lip gloss, and flirting – and been ignored, rebuffed or laughed at so many times that he’d finally decided it was safer to view attractive men as works of art in a museum. _Look, admire, fill yourself with awe or even desire…but don’t touch._

Yuuri knew he was older now, and different…maybe. But he’d programmed himself with that pattern of thought. If beautiful people were works of art, then Victor was the _David_ of them all – and that was all the more reason to be careful.

The reality of the situation in the days that followed, however, was rather more complex. Victor was attentive, generous, easy and fun to be with. They could also have the most technical conversations and spark off each other so quickly that it seemed like there was some kind of circuit between them. Despite the short time they’d been together, Yuuri had come to feel that Victor was the best friend he’d ever had. And yet he still had no idea what the future held once their study was complete.

One afternoon when they were both able to juggle their schedules to make themselves free, they changed out of their work clothes and walked to Fenway Park, where Victor treated them to a baseball game. Yuuri bought them Cracker Jack and watery beer, and tried to explain was going on, growing increasingly amused at Victor’s apparent inability to comprehend.

“You’re a neuroscientist, for Christ’s sake,” he laughed, popping a clump of the caramelized popcorn and peanuts into his mouth. “How can you not get something so simple?”

“Well…” Victor said, pausing to consider for a moment, “…it’s a lot to take in all at once.”

Yuuri snorted softly. “You know what I think? I think you’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“Surely not,” Victor replied with a low chuckle. “Anyway, look – why is that man running before the pitcher throws the ball?”

Yuuri opened his mouth to answer, but saw that Victor was no longer watching the game, digging instead in his box of Cracker Jack.

“What’s this?”

“Have you found the prize?”

“They put prizes inside?”

“Yeah. They stopped for a while, but people complained. It’s a tradition. What have you got?” He rummaged through his own box. “Piece of gum for me,” he said, pulling it out and shoving it in his jeans pocket.

Victor held something out on his palm. It was a little wooden silver-painted horseshoe. “I guess this is supposed to be for luck. Here, you have it.”

“So does that mean you already have plenty of good luck, or that you think I need more?” Yuuri asked with a smirk, picking it off of his hand and eyeing it.

“I guess it means…I’d like to see everything that comes your way be something good. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

Yuuri’s cheeks pinked, and he quietly returned Victor’s smile, then put the horseshoe in his pocket.

***

The day of the seminar crept steadily forward, and Yuuri discovered that his anxiety levels were doing the same, despite the knowledge that Victor was going to be presenting with him, and they had planned everything far in advance. It was only to be expected, though, Yuuri knew; that was how he always reacted to such things. They were scheduled for last as well, which meant that he would have to sit through almost two days’ worth of other seminars first, without being able to relax and properly enjoy them.  

Victor was at MIT on Friday; the seminars were running the following Monday and Tuesday. Yuuri leaned back in his office chair that morning, his feet propped on his desk, a cup of rosehip tea steaming nearby, untouched. The biochem monitor was clasped in one hand; he took a reading while running his other hand through his hair. His cortisol levels were too high, though that had been the case for days. Overactive hypothalamus; HPA axis disruption. T-cell count low, inhibited histamine secretion –

“Yuuri.” Victor was sitting at the other desk, and had turned to look at him. “I’ve got the weekend free. I won’t be going to New York. Why don’t we do some things together to get your mind off next week?”

“You do?” Yuuri sat up in surprise, switching the monitor off and putting it in his carryall. Then he deflated. “I don’t think I’d be very good company, and I know you don’t get much time to yourself. Maybe you should just – ”

“I’d like to, if you would.” He gave Yuuri a warm smile that melted straight through him.

“What did you have in mind?” Yuuri asked, returning the smile.

“I’m not sure, but we could look on the Cloud and see what’s happening in town.”

“Well…I’d been wondering about going to the beach on the harbor and looking at the sand sculptures. There’s a competition on tomorrow; people get several hours to work, and then the sculptures are judged. Usually they’re pretty good. Do…do you want to go see them with me?”

Victor’s eyes danced. “I’d love to.”

He stopped by Yuuri’s apartment the following day to collect him, and they traveled on the T to the beach. Being in Victor’s company during a weekend was a rare treat, and Yuuri hoped he hadn’t cancelled any plans he’d had in New York just for the sake of helping to allay his fears about their presentation. There still had been no word from Victor about what he actually _did_ when he was in New York, but it must be something important, Yuuri knew, to demand his time in that way.

When they arrived at the beach, Yuuri was too interested in the sculptures to think much about work, which he knew had been the point. The theme of the festival this year was “change,” and he was amazed at all the interpretations they came across. There was a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, a sweep of something like a sunbeam that was transforming into an old man’s face, a copy of Bernini’s famous _Apollo and Daphne_ sculpture where Daphne was being turned into a tree; even a pile of huge coins spilling over, from someone who had decided to take the theme literally.

“I’m glad you mentioned this yesterday,” Victor said as they stood side by side looking at a dinosaur hatching from a giant egg. “There’s a sculpture festival every year in St. Petersburg, but I’ve only ever been once, when I was small. I didn’t remember all the detail that goes into it. This is like looking around a museum.”

“More fun, maybe, because you can play in the water.” They were both carrying their shoes and socks, having waded into the sea and even chased each other for a time through the thick golden sand, which had threatened to trip them up with every shifting step. Victor was wearing jeans and a T-shirt today, like Yuuri, and they had both rolled the denim up to their knees.

“I wonder what happens when it rains, though,” Victor mused, gazing at the western horizon, where a bank of black clouds was gathering.

“I think they put some kind of waterproof spray on the sculptures. Plus they pack the sand really hard, so the water doesn’t make everything crumble.”

“We might get to find out soon, by the look of that. It’s coming in fast, too.”

They barely reached the nearest café before the thunderstorm hit. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled while they stood in line inside, pulling their shoes and socks back on. They were lucky to spot one vacant table in the corner, where they sat across from each other and watched the sheeting rain through the nearby window.

“I hope nothing out there gets damaged too badly,” Victor said, pulling a piece off a blueberry muffin and nibbling on it while his eyes gazed at the gray outside.

“I think the sculptors are used to this. It’s not the same as building things with a bucket and spade when you’re a kid.” Yuuri had a mug of peppermint tea, which he sipped, breathing in the steam through his nose. “Though that’s fun too.”

Victor’s eyes shifted to focus keenly on his own. “I guess whatever people try to build can be vulnerable to destruction. Maybe all you can do sometimes is expect the unexpected.” He chuckled. “You’d rarely be disappointed, that way.”

Yuuri thought about this. “But maybe it’s not a bad thing. If you get rid of what’s gone before, you’ve got the opportunity to put something better in its place.”

Victor smiled. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it. Hopeful.”

“Like Pandora’s box. Without hope, what have you got left?”

Victor sat back in his chair, looking at him, the smile still there, and the silence stretched until Yuuri’s cheeks pinked and he glanced down as if the dregs of his tea were suddenly fascinating. _Did I just say that? I was depressed not that long ago; I would never have said it then. But…I meant it._

***

“This place is wonderful. I wish Makkachin could be here. She’d love it.”

They were walking steadily up a rocky hard-packed dirt path in the middle of a pine forest. Tendrils of mist wove around them and in and out of the trees, and calls from unseen birds fell softly from the branches above, stifled by the humidity.

Yuuri had never expected to find himself here with Victor. The day before, they had been returning on the T from the beach to Yuuri’s apartment house when he felt his mind being drawn toward the presentation again, and the familiar nebulous fears resurfaced. If only things had gone well at Stanford, he was sure they wouldn’t be as intense as this now. His insecurities were his own problem to cope with, however, and he tried to pretend that nothing was wrong as they approached the station. But Victor saw through it and asked him what he’d like to do the following day that would distract him like the sand sculptures had done – and that was when Yuuri had come up with the idea of a hike in the Berkshires. When he’d suggested it, despite the fact that it would be an all-day trip, Victor has sounded delighted by the idea. So they’d parted at the station…

…and here they were, hiking up Mt. Greylock, the tallest mountain in the state. It wasn’t much to boast about at only a kilometer above sea level, but Yuuri knew it offered spectacular views at the summit – when the weather was clear. Right now he felt enveloped in the mist like a warm blanket, his bare arms clammy with it; it muffled their footfalls and swallowed their voices, building the illusion that they really were isolated from the rest of the world. That suited Yuuri just fine today. He and Victor had met up at the maglev station to the north of town and traveled west, then had rented a small car at the station port, and Yuuri had driven the rest of the way to the parking area for the hike that he had chosen, which would be a round trip of several hours. They’d brought backpacks with food and drink, though they traveled lightly, as it was an easy walk. Fortunately, Yuuri had done this many times before, so it was all a routine that had taken little thought. He’d been surprised, however, that Victor had been willing to come at such short notice, though he seemed to be enjoying himself.

In response to Victor’s comment about Makkachin, Yuuri imagined him walking with a large poodle bounding along next to him, and smiled. It was a shame Victor’s dog was so far away; he always spoke of her fondly. Then he noticed a break in the mist up ahead, near a clearing in the trees, and he stepped over to have a look.

“We’re higher than I thought we were – almost at the top, in fact,” he said as he took in a sea of green stretching out for kilometers in every direction, a silver ribbon of river threading through, patches of mist still drifting. But there was blue sky above now as the cloud thinned and broke overhead. It looked like they might be in for a pleasant sunny afternoon. There were little snatches of breeze now, dissipating the damp.

After a few more minutes they reached the summit, a meadowy expanse with smooth bald tan-colored rocks peeking out of the short grass. It was a popular area today, with a lodge offering food and drink nearby, and more spectacular views of rolling hills and valleys, the town of North Adams tucked among the trees at the base of the mountain. Other hikers were lounging on the rocks, chatting or quietly looking around, or lying back enjoying the sun on their faces. A few aircams buzzed past. Yuuri and Victor chose a sun-warmed rock at a distance where they could have a private conversation, and ate their packed lunches, then looked out at the view. Victor tossed his own aircam up, and it spun around to take photos from different angles; then he asked Yuuri if he would like to be in a photo together, and they sat side by side with a thumbs-up gesture. Yuuri was used to this by now, though Victor still always politely asked him, knowing he didn’t enjoy having his photo taken. After Victor uploaded the photos to the Cloud, they turned to face each other, still seated on the rock, the hot summer sun sparkling, having banished all vestiges of mist and fog.

Yuuri took a carton of water out of his backpack and sipped, cradling the glass thoughtfully in his hand. “Victor, would it be OK with you if we talked some more about the presentation on the way back down? Not…not that I’m still stressing about it. Much. I just want to make sure I’ve got it straight in my head. I mean, coming here has helped a lot, but that’ll help even more, I think.”

Victor took a pull from his own carton of water, and nodded somberly. “Sure, Yuuri. Whatever works for you, that’s what we’ll do.”

“It doesn’t seem to bother you,” Yuuri mused. “Why is that?”

Victor huffed a small laugh. “I suppose I’m used to it. I’ve been…presenting things for years. Though I ought to confess I never feel completely calm inside about it, either.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Like I said yesterday, when we were talking about the sand sculptures in the rain, you always have to expect the unexpected…and that can be unsettling, but you get through.”

Yuuri drew little invisible patterns on the rock with his finger, his eyes following as he traced. “I’m weak, Victor,” he said quietly. “I’m so bad at this kind of thing. Sometimes I wonder how I’ll ever get anywhere in this profession when it’s so hard to be in front of people.”

He felt Victor’s gaze on him. “Yuuri, you’re not weak.” He said it as if it were the most simple, obvious fact. “And even though you say it bothers you, you still teach your class. You go to conferences. You face your fears all the time. I admire you for that.”

Yuuri looked up at him in wonder. He’d never thought about it like that before. And no one had ever expressed such positive sentiments, either, about what he’d always seen as one of his most embarrassing shortcomings.

Victor added in almost a whisper, “You’re beautiful, Yuuri.” He reached out his hand and slid a finger gently down Yuuri’s cheek; then he slowly drew it back as if uncertain, and a small grin lifted the corners of his mouth.

This wasn’t a just game to him. Yuuri could finally see that now. He wasn’t expecting to trade innuendos; he wasn’t toying with his feelings, trying to get a reaction out of him. And these weren’t merely friendly gestures; this was not how he behaved around other people at the university.

_He…I think he really cares about me. He means what he’s saying. It’s hard to imagine how, but…_

_I can’t disappoint him, then. I’ve got to do a good job on Tuesday, and…and we’ll see what happens from there._

His heart was soaring. “Well…with us both doing the presentation, it’s bound to be good.”

“Absolutely.”

“In fact, it’ll be wicked flink. Wait and see.”

Victor laughed and sipped his water, his eyes still holding Yuuri’s and sparkling.


	15. Chapter 15

The visiting professors arrived during coffee break the next morning, and Yuuri and Victor attended an informal greeting session in the atrium. Besides them both, there were five other representatives from the MIT neuroscience department in attendance, including Dr. Bayar, as well as four from Harvard, one of whom had recently won a Nobel Prize, and three from Johns Hopkins. Yuuri cupped a mug of peppermint and cocoa tea, more for something to do with his hands than anything else, and made polite conversation, though he always felt awkward in situations like this. At least he had read up on the research that the professors would be presenting, so he could talk with them about that, and they seemed flattered that he was so knowledgeable about their work. Though when Jin Zhou, the Nobel laureate, approached, Yuuri quailed initially, until suddenly they were both joined by Victor, who already knew him and was able to put both him and Yuuri at their ease. In fact, Yuuri was impressed by how pleasant and charming Victor was, though he knew he shouldn’t be, because he’d seen him work his spell before. If only a little of that magic could rub off on himself, Yuuri thought, his own life would be so much easier.

“Sessions like this get a little tedious, don’t you think?” Victor said quietly to him with a little wink when they had a moment to themselves off to the side. Victor was nibbling a sugar cookie and had a cup of coffee in one hand.

“You know my answer to that,” Yuuri muttered, taking a sip of his tea. It was almost room temperature by now, but no matter.

“Still, I’m looking forward to hearing more about Dr. Zhou’s research. I’ve spoken to him at the university on a few occasions, but – ” He paused, his eyes suddenly taking on a vacant look. “I’ve got a call – I’d better take it. I’ll just nip outside; back in a minute.” He hurried to the front door, which opened for him to pass outside.

Yuuri frowned as he watched. This wasn’t a casual call; Victor was concerned about something.

“I see the two of you are presenting tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” said Dr. Bayar, joining him with a friendly smile. “They must be saving the best for last, heh?”

“Well I don’t know about that, but I think what we’ve been doing is pretty exciting.” He glanced again at Victor, who was standing near the wall with his hands against his ears in the familiar attitude of one who wanted to concentrate on sound from their chip and was trying to block out extraneous noise. Yuuri felt a dart of concern when he noticed the worried look on his face. Then he started to pace, the breeze outside lifting his hair and the flaps of his grey suitcoat in the back.  

“Something wrong?” Dr. Bayar asked, following Yuuri’s gaze.

“I don’t know.”

They stood quietly for a moment, and then Victor returned to the atrium and trotted back over to Yuuri. “I need to talk to you,” he said, grasping the top of Yuuri’s arm.

Dr. Bayar nodded to them and said a quick goodbye. “What’s wrong?” Yuuri asked.

“That was my father in St. Petersburg. Makkachin…she got into a box of dark chocolates in a cupboard.”

“Shit.”

“He says she ate a lot of them, and he’s had to rush her to the vet. It…it doesn’t look good.”

Yuuri mirrored his action, gripping his arm. “You need to go.”

“What? I can’t.”

“Yes, you do,” Yuuri said firmly. “I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to my own dog; I was here, and my family was in Oxford, and they didn’t even say anything to me until…until it was over. I would’ve gone, Victor. I think you should, too.”

Yuuri could see the struggle in the depths of his eyes. “I can’t leave you here to do this alone.”

“We’ve been over and over it for weeks. I’ve even thought how patient you’ve been all this time, doing that for me. I can handle it on my own.”

Victor ran a hand through his bangs, looking stricken. “I don’t know…”

“You saw Dr. Bayar just now. He’s here, and other people from the department, and I know they’ll be supporting me. It’ll be fine. Really.” His voice dropped and he said earnestly, “Go.”

***

_It’ll be fine._

Only, it wasn’t. And it was less and less fine as the day went on and Yuuri thought about delivering the presentation in the morning. The ones he watched at the university were confident and polished. Sleep was out of the question as he lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

Victor had told him to call over his tablet whenever he needed to, and they could talk face to face. He’d left MIT right away after booking his plane tickets, and was now in Russia. Due to the eight-hour time difference, Yuuri hadn’t attempted to contact him, but he had messaged Yuuri over his chip to let him know when his plane landed. It was the middle of the night there, so he’d gone straight to his father’s house; though early in the morning, despite the fact that he must have been jet-lagged, he still contacted Yuuri via tablet to say good night and good luck for the presentation. He and his father were going to see Makkachin at the vet’s shortly. Yuuri again reassured him that all would be well, and told him not to worry about it; he needed to focus on his dog getting better.

Victor’s thoughtfulness in calling him like that went some way to helping Yuuri feel calmer. It was touching, and good to see his face, even if it had been a little haggard after the journey. But he felt the fear building inside of him nevertheless, and the rational part of him could lecture it til the cows came home and not make any difference. It didn’t help that Victor’s reputation was now riding on this research, as well as his own, and Yuuri _could not_ let him down. Even if it wasn’t a formal presentation like his paper had been, this was a distinguished audience, including a Nobel laureate. A shudder ran down his spine, and he suddenly felt sick.

He’d tried the brainwave-entraining device, to no avail. Put the holographic dance program on, hoping music and exercise might take his mind off things, but all it did was irritate him, and he quickly switched it off. He’d even called Phichit, who didn’t have much to say but wished him luck. Eventually he’d resorted to watching an old black and white film, _The Grapes of Wrath,_ though he’d seen it before. At least it helped to put things in perspective, because while he was worrying about giving a talk to a bunch of scientists, it was a reminder that there were people, then and now, who were worrying about putting food on the table or having a roof over their heads. An image of Crow had quickly flashed in his mind, though he kicked it back out. Fortunately, he hadn’t caught any more glimpses of him on the bridge or anywhere else after their last meeting.

Somehow he had to get to sleep, or he would be sabotaging his chances of success before the day even dawned. With a start, he remembered what he often used to do in this situation: fantasize about a man, give himself an orgasm, and drift off to sleep on a cloud of bliss. When he was younger, that was usually Freddie; and when he was older, well…while he had drawn the line at conjuring Victor’s image in the holographic program, Yuuri couldn’t say the same for his unbridled imagination. In the past, at least. But there was the sick feeling again in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t do it anymore. He hadn’t done it, in fact, since he’d met the real man. They didn’t have that kind of relationship, no matter how much Yuuri desired it, and so it wouldn’t have felt right. But at the same time, there was no one else he wanted; not even a holographic dance partner. Yuuri wondered how other people negotiated such situations. He’d been neglecting his body’s needs while at the same time feeling impelled to reach out for Victor in a dozen different ways.  

In the end, in desperation, he found a gay porn site on his chip and chose something to watch that wasn’t too demeaning. In fact, it gave him a few ideas, if he ever got the opportunity to try them out. And it helped that the actors were computer-generated, because it felt more ethical that way, with the added bonus that they seemed convincing in their responses. He had to banish invading thoughts of wishing Victor was there doing _that_ to him, or that he wanted to do it to Victor; but eventually he found the release he was after.

As he fell asleep, however, one final thought crept mischievously into his head. He wanted it to be _Victor_ who made him feel warm and sated like this; and Victor who was lying by his side, skin against skin, as he drowsed.

***

Yuuri was crunching on a celery stick smeared with almond butter and cocoa, had grabbed his carryall, and was walking toward the door when Victor called on his tablet. He put his bag back down hastily and pulled the device out, then activated the screen.

 _He looks like he got even less sleep than me,_ Yuuri thought as Victor’s bleary-eyed face gave him a little grin. There were yips and woofs in the background; he was surrounded by bright clinical white.

“Hi, Yuuri – I just wanted to say good luck again.”

“That’s, um…that’s very kind, Victor. Thanks. But like I said, don’t worry about me. How’s Makkachin?”

“It’s touch and go…she might pull through, but it’s too early to know. She’s on an IV, and they’ve given her some medicine. Look…I wanted to say, if it’d help, that I could do my part of the presentation remotely from here. My notes are all on my tablet.”

Yuuri felt a warm wave of gratitude for Victor’s concern, but there was no way he was going to let him do that. “You be there for Makkachin, and stop worrying about me.” He gave a little laugh. “You’ll end up beating me in the anxiety stakes, and that’s saying something. I’m all ready; I’ll be fine.”

Only, he wasn’t. Not really. He managed to keep up a good masquerade during the call, he thought; but as soon as it ended, it was a different matter. While he took the T to work, his brain kept trying to play scenarios in which everything went horribly wrong; and when he succeeded in forcing the thoughts out of his mind, the dark blob that lived inside him still stretched filaments into heart and limb, until he wished that when he got out at the station, he could walk straight across the platform to catch a train going back.

_I can do this. Didn’t Victor tell me he admired how I face my fears? And he’s been calling me to support me, even though he must be worried sick about Makkachin. I’m not going to let him down._

There were two seminars today before his own. He arrived in plenty of time. Jogging instead of taking the T might have helped to calm his nerves and get his endorphins flowing, he thought, but it seemed better to make a good impression without wet hair from the shower or rumpled clothes. His office was empty when he walked in. When he took his suit coat off and draped it over his chair, he noticed that his hands were visibly shaking. The sight of it sent a bolt of panic through him, and he fell into his chair, breaking out in a sweat.

“No,” he said aloud, taking deep breaths, staring at the empty chair across from him and trying to imagine Victor there, giving his warmest, most reassuring smile. “It’s OK. It’s OK. I can do this.”

He took out his tablet and began to review his notes, as well as the visual parts of the presentation that he planned to display on the large screen in the lecture hall. Willing himself to focus, the nervousness gradually subsided to levels he considered manageable; and then he left to attend the first seminar of the day.

He listened for twenty minutes or so; but this was Dr. Bayar’s presentation, and Yuuri already knew a great deal about the work he’d been doing in their department, and found his thoughts drifting. He began reviewing what he needed to do for his own presentation, and when. Nothing had been uploaded to the Cloud, because he hadn’t wanted information about his and Victor’s research to be open to hacking, so he would have his tablet with him and link the information from that when the time came. He began to scan through the diagrams, then realized what a rude audience member he must seem, and forced himself to put the tablet away and pay attention.

He found it impossible to do so, however, when the next seminar began. This one was due to last about half an hour, followed by a coffee break, and then he was on. The thought sent another sudden stab of panic through him.

_No, not here. Come on, come on, it’s no big deal. Just a little informal data-sharing, that’s all._

He took his tablet out, initially to scroll through his notes again. But he knew them. In reality, it was just handy to have something to hang on to. His fingers gripped it tightly. The Harvard scientist giving this seminar looked so serene.

_Why can’t I be like that? What the fuck is wrong with me?_

He took a deep breath, but it turned into a half-sob. Fearful now that someone might notice him and stare, catching the attention of others who would also turn and stare, he rose from his chair as inconspicuously as he could and crept out of the room, the door shutting quietly behind him.

Once in the deserted hall, he leaned against the white plaster wall, counting his breaths, listening to the presenter’s voice muffle its way through the door. He ran the back of his hand across his forehead, thought of Victor, and promised himself for the umpteenth time that he could, and would, make a good job of this.

He tried to access his chip for the time of day, only to discover that nothing would come up in his visual field. Call receiver. Messenger. Notepad. Cloud. Nothing working. All too familiar. And what a time for it, too.

Never mind. It was a good thing he’d stored his notes on his tablet. Still clutching it in one hand, he lifted it to turn it on. Only to discover it wasn’t working either. He pressed the switch several times, harder and harder. Pulled the panel on the back off, took the magnetic coil out with fingers that refused to remain steady, and replaced it after almost dropping it twice. Still no good. He leaned against the wall again, tilted his head back, and gave a whimper.

 _Do something. Now._ Had he thought to store his notes on his other tablet? He couldn’t remember, but it was worth checking. He flew down the hall, back to his office, and dug it from his carryall. This one switched on, at least. But he hadn’t thought to back his notes up onto it.

_You should back up everything you do, especially if it isn’t stored on the cloud, you clinker. How could you make that kind of mistake with something so important?_

Phichit. Where was he? Yuuri returned the tablet to his carryall instead of keeping hold of it, since it looked like he was bringing the touch of death to all tech today, and slung it over his shoulder, dashing into the hallway. As he ran, he said to the Friday, which was at least voice-activated and so did not require connection with a chip, “Tell me where Phichit is.”

“Phichit is in the Space Propulsion Laboratory.”

 _Shit._ “Are there any other technical engineers in this building?”

“Not at this time.”

Yuuri suddenly halted, unsure of where exactly he was trying to run to, when there was no one here who could help him. And if he’d caused something in the tablet to blow, how could he expect even the best techie on the campus to fix it in the time he had left? The scientists would be going on their coffee break shortly, and then they’d be filing back into the lecture hall.

Waiting for him. For the beautiful, polished presentation he owed it to Victor to give.

This time a full sob escaped his throat, and he ducked into the nearest vacant classroom, where he slid to the floor, his back against the wall. His body was shaking, and a tear trailed down his cheek. It felt like he was hiding – but that was exactly what he wanted to do. Make himself so small and invisible that no one would see him. Especially like this.

“Victor, I’m sorry,” he whispered.

_Call him._

He didn’t even know where the thought had come from. But the last thing he wanted to do was disturb Victor, who had problems of his own, and reveal to him what a mess he was making of things here. He couldn’t bear to disappoint him like that.

_He would want you to call him. He’d want to help if he could._

Without any further thought, he took the functioning tablet out of his carryall and touched Victor’s name on his screen. It beeped, waiting to be acknowledged on the other end. He took a shaky breath.

Victor’s face appeared, with the same bright white walls and canine yelps in the background as before. He looked surprised at first to hear from Yuuri, but must have taken one look at the state of him and realized something was wrong. “Yuuri, what is it?” he said. “What’s happened? Are you OK?”

“I…I’m sorry to bother you, Victor. But no, I’m not. Um, the presentation’s in…I don’t know how many minutes, actually. There’s nothing here to tell me the time. This tablet doesn’t have a Cloud connection; just a call function and data storage. And, um…there’s been a little technical hitch. Well, more than a little one.” He explained how devices like his chip tended to malfunction when he got anxious, which was as good as confessing to Victor that he’d been falling to pieces, but there was no escaping that now. And he was therefore unable to access his presentation notes and materials.

“I have my notes here on my tablet, and my chip’s working OK,” Victor said. “I could give the presentation myself via video uplink.”

Yuuri shook his head. “Victor, you’re at the vet’s. You look like you’ve hardly slept, which means you won’t exactly be at your best. And you’re worried about Makkachin.”

“Maybe you should tell them you need to cancel, then.” Victor’s voice was gentle, though it betrayed his fatigue. “Tell them what’s happened. I’m sure they’d understand.”

“I don’t want to have to do that,” Yuuri said, his voice wobbling. “I already messed up the last presentation I did. My chip malfunctioned then, too. But they’ll just think I’m making up excuses. Other people cope when things go wrong at the last minute. I should be able to, too.” Tears were spilling freely down his cheeks now, and he put his hand over his face. What had he been thinking, to call Victor only to sit and do this in front of him?

“All right, then. You know all the notes backwards and forwards. Can you try doing it from memory?”

Yuuri’s stomach gave a lurch. “No,” he whispered. Maybe Victor could do that sort of thing, but Yuuri couldn’t ad-lib to save his life, especially not something as complex as this. With a stab of annoyance, he wondered if Victor realized what it was like for people who struggled with things that came easily to him. “Victor, I just need you to have faith in me,” he said. “And…tell me what I can do to make this right.”

“Of course I have faith in you. You’re brilliant, Yuuri. Intuitive. You do great work.” He was interrupted by a series of loud barks echoing down the hall near him, then resumed. “Take some slow, deep breaths. That’s it. Try…try visualizing your favorite places, or things that you’ve done. I’d give you a hug or a kiss if it’d help, but I can’t exactly do that from Russia.”

Yuuri closed his eyes and breathed deliberately and steadily, talking while he wiped the tears away with his shirt cuff. “The baseball game we went to. Jogging and dancing to our playlists.” To his surprise, a small smile crept across his face as he recalled. “You cooking us breakfast in my apartment. Hiking with you on the mountain.” He felt warmth radiating through him. These were the important things; the ones that really mattered. That made him happy. Victor.

When he opened his eyes, he discovered that Victor had reached a hand out to the little camera on his tablet, as if trying to touch Yuuri. There was a wistful look on his face. Yuuri mirrored it, reaching his own hand out, as if somehow they could reduce the space between them to nothing simply by their longing to make contact. It felt like time had frozen, and they were the only people in existence.

 _Time…_ was there any left? “Victor, what time is it?” Yuuri asked, his voice breaking the spell.

“Um…ten minutes to ten where you are.”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“You do?”

“I’m going to do the seminar, with some modifications. But I’m going to have to get going, or they’ll be waiting for me. They won’t even be able to find out where I am, because my chip’s blown.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I can do this.”

***

Yuuri felt himself filling with nervous enthusiasm as he quickly made his way through the corridors. It was still an uncomfortable feeling, but a positive one at least, so unlike the poisonous anxiety that had spread through him. He’d felt sure Victor would be annoyed with him for calling him and panicking. No; _annoyed_ wasn’t the word. _Disappointed._ After all the planning and practicing, and the time Victor had spent with him over the weekend. But instead, he’d done his best to help Yuuri out of the hole he’d been in.

_The hole I’m still in. I’ve got to do this seminar and make it work._

Then he remembered how Victor had said he would give him a hug or a kiss if it would help.

 _Holy shit._ Yuuri practically lost his footing as a drunken swoop of joy passed through him. Had he really said that? Yes, he had.

When Yuuri arrived at the lecture hall, not a moment too soon, he suddenly felt a tremor of fear as the reality of the situation hit.

_I am not going to let it get on top of me this time._

He took a deep breath, opened the door, walked in with his head held high, went to the front of the room, and told himself this was just another group of students he was going to lecture. But before anything else, he explained about the damage to his chip and tablet, and invited everyone to accompany him to the lab where he’d been working, as it would be possible to perform some visual demonstrations there with the tech they’d been using, including some that had been adapted for their subjects who did not have chips. Other parts of the presentation that could not be shown during the seminar would be made available to them later, when he was able to retrieve his resources.

Once in the lab, he apologized for Victor’s absence, explained the basics of what they had been doing, and used remote controls to run the equipment, just as he’d been doing with the research subjects. He hadn’t expected to be able to accomplish much more than this; but when he discovered how well it was going, he went on to give a version of the presentation he and Victor had originally planned – ad-libbing it from memory, though he hadn’t thought himself capable of such a thing. He knew it would have been better if he’d been in the lecture hall with everything there that he needed, of course; but as second best, it would pass. It was difficult, he explained, to draw any conclusions from the study yet, because those would hinge on the data obtained from the second cohort; but he said the preliminary results were hopeful, and he felt they would eventually be able to define some clear distinctions between shamanic states of consciousness as a distinct sub-category of altered states of consciousness, being purposeful and volitional, unlike psychotic or dissociative conditions. He even fielded a question-and-answer session afterward with confidence. His colleagues from the MIT department came over at the end to congratulate him on how resilient he’d been, considering the last-minute technical problems; and Dr. Bayar recommended a tech shop that he knew would do a good job of installing a decent chip for him this time, seeing as how he seemed to have constant problems with them.

This having been the concluding seminar, once everyone had said their goodbyes, Yuuri lingered alone in the lab. He placed his palms on a smooth, cold patch of work surface and leaned over, hanging his head and feeling so much tension drain out of him that it was a wonder he didn’t seep into the floor along with it.

Over. It was over. He’d done it. Without Victor; without his chip or tablet or notes.

_I built this up into something so overpoweringly awful that I lost sight of how simple and easy it really was. I’ve been here for ten years. I’m experienced; I know what I’m doing. It’s about time I gave myself credit for that._

Credit to Victor, too, for putting up with it all. With a sudden grin, Yuuri pulled his tablet out of his carryall and called him. He answered almost instantly, with an expression of concern on his face.

“Hi,” came his tentative voice.

“Hi,” Yuuri said with a radiant smile. “It’s all over with, and it’s OK. I took them to the lab, where I could show them what we’ve been working on, and I pretty much remembered all of my notes. So…yeah. It was good.”

Victor sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “That…that’s great to hear. I was thinking about you all this time – ”

“I’m sorry about that. You’ve got enough to worry about, without me calling you like I did. I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I guess I wasn’t much help, but – ”

“You were,” Yuuri said softly. “Any word on Makkachin yet?”

Victor frowned and his eyes flicked downward.

“Let me know, then. I’ll be waiting, too.”

They ended the call shortly afterward, Victor appearing exhausted. Yuuri wished there was something he could have done in return, but there was no magic wand that could heal a sick dog. And yet Victor had done so much for him just by being there to talk to.

Locating a piece of equipment that displayed the time, he decided he could just fit in a jog that incorporated a visit to Dr. Bayar’s recommended tech shop before he needed to be back to meet with students. Slinging the strap of his carryall over his shoulder, he headed out to the gym. The day was far too hot for any kind of jacket, but once he was changed he clipped a sports belt with pockets around his waist, into which he slipped both his busted tablet for repairs and his good one, in case Victor rang.

It was a good thing he had, because it beeped him soon after he arrived at the tech shop. Makkachin was going to be OK, Victor told him with obvious relief. “I made my dad promise to keep chocolates well out of reach from now on. After all this time, he didn’t know Makka could open the cupboard.”

“Dogs will get into anything.”

The ghost of a smile crossed Victor’s face. “Oh yes. Even though she’s getting on in years, my dad is too, and I think he finds her a handful sometimes. If they’d just let me take her to the university with me…well. At least she’s getting better now.”

“I’m glad you went. I’m sure you’ve been taking good care of her.”

“I’m glad, too. Thank you so much, Yuuri; I know it wasn’t easy for you on your own – ”

“Hey. No sweat.” They both laughed.

Victor said he planned to get a little rest and return by tomorrow evening. Yuuri gave him a bright smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to anything so much.

***

 

He had a class to teach before lunch on Friday, but for once his mind wasn’t on it as he jogged to work. By the time he was downtown, he realized he didn’t even remember crossing the bridge over the harbor to get there.

He had originally planned to meet Victor at the airport when he returned, but his flight had been delayed, and he’d arrived in Boston just before midnight. He knew Yuuri had been keeping an eye on its progress, and had sent a message when the plane landed telling him he’d rather he didn’t walk to the airport at that time of night, and he’d simply get on the T from there, go back to his apartment and get some sleep, and look forward to seeing him in the morning. Yuuri had been disappointed, but then he’d dozed off himself; and when he awoke in the morning, it was to the unusual experience of wanting to spring out of bed and welcome the day. Welcome one person in particular.   

He felt lighter than air as he jogged the rest of the way to the campus. But as he showered at the gym, the jets of water seemed to ground him, and he wondered just what he ought to say and do when he got to the office, where Victor might or might not already be waiting. Yes, Yuuri would be very glad to see him. But…then what? He realized he still felt some embarrassment about the call he’d made during his anxiety attack. And Victor was no doubt tired and jet-lagged. At the same time, however, he was pleased with how well the presentation had gone, and felt a warm debt of gratitude to Victor for his support. Then there was the little issue of how Victor had said he’d wished he could give him a hug or a kiss…and Yuuri had already come to the conclusion that these weren’t simply throwaway remarks or actions on his part.

_But is it enough for me to…could I really…_

A fearful flutter passed through his chest. He was familiar enough with that feeling from the past several days.

_So am I going to spend the rest of my life avoiding things because I’m afraid of what might happen? I may as well never risk getting out of bed in the morning if that’s the case._

But the flutter didn’t go away.

He finished, dried off, and got dressed. To his consternation, however, his hand was shaking when the Friday clicked the office door and he pulled it open.

No Victor.

He took a deep breath and draped his suitcoat over his chair. He ought to be planning the lab work for the day, anyway. That would be the professional thing to do. But before he could organize his thoughts into some kind of order, the door snicked open and Victor stepped in. There were still circles under his eyes, and he was moving slowly as if in a dream, but a smile lit up his face when he saw Yuuri.

Yuuri returned the smile, groping for words that would not come. Then, seemingly of their own accord, his feet took him to where Victor was standing; and, as naturally as breathing, their arms were around each other. Victor was wearing the gray suit from Monday, and Yuuri nestled his head against the lapel, which smelled of lavender, and sweat, and – best of all – Victor himself _._

_I love you._

_Oh…wow._

It was completely, undeniably true, Yuuri knew. And both frightening and intoxicating.

_I want to…_

But he wouldn’t let himself finish that thought. Maybe this…maybe it was enough. Victor was tired, after all. Yuuri dropped his arms and stepped back, leaning against his desk behind him. Victor stood, gazing at him quietly, his expression unreadable. Then he removed his suitcoat and hung it on a peg near the door, and hovered, as if unsure what to do next. He was wearing a white work shirt like Yuuri’s, the top button near his throat undone, and it was more wrinkled than usual, as if it had been folded and packed in a suitcase.

“Yuuri, it’s good to see you,” he said with a small smile. “What do you want to work on today?”

 _Work on?_ Now that they were together, after everything that had happened, after the embrace they’d just shared…he wanted to talk about work?

“I, um…I hadn’t thought about it yet.”

There was a pause. “OK, well – ”

“Before we, um, do anything else, I just thought…maybe you’d want to talk about Tuesday.”

“Oh?”

The part of Yuuri that was embarrassed about his meltdown was asserting itself first. Typical, he thought. “It’s just that…” He sighed. _Come on, get straight to the point._ “I almost fucked up the presentation, Victor. Then I went and called you when you were halfway across the world, worried about Makkachin. I thought…” He shrugged. “I don’t know…that it might put you off. It was selfish of me, when – ”

“Yuuri…” Victor said, looking at him earnestly, “…how could you think I’d be put off by a call?”

Yuuri blinked. “Um, well it felt like I was intruding. I didn’t want to – ”

“How could you ever think that?”

Yuuri paused again, unsure of what to say, surprised at the feeling in Victor’s words. “I told you I was going to do the presentation by myself. That I was confident and prepared. But I got anxious, and then my chip blew – ”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

 _It kind of was._ “Still…I just wanted to do better. It felt like I was letting you down.”

Victor shook his head slightly, looking as if he couldn’t believe what Yuuri was saying. “Then you might be surprised to hear that I didn’t feel that way at all. Not for a moment.” He smiled, and Yuuri couldn’t look away from those eyes, so beautifully blue. “I was surprised when you volunteered to do the presentation on your own in the first place, because you’ve said how much it bothers you. And then, when your chip and tablet were both damaged, and you were so upset…I wanted to help, Yuuri, I really did. But in the end, I thought the best solution might be to cancel the presentation. There wouldn’t have been any harm done. You found the strength inside of you to do it, though.” His eyes were shining, and he added quietly, “It must’ve been good, too. Dr. Zhou called me and told me how impressed he was with our research, and how much he enjoyed listening to you.” At Yuuri’s gasp of surprise, he added, “I think you did better than a lot of people would in that situation.”

His mouth was still hanging open, Yuuri realized. His instinct was to argue; to say he’d still made a mess of it. But he hadn’t. He’d known at the time it had gone well, and here was more evidence, with Victor’s glowing praise on top. But…“I’m still sorry I had to call you,” he said quietly. “You didn’t need that along with everything else.”

Victor gave a little sigh, but the corners of his mouth quirked up. “I’m glad you did. I’m glad you gave me the chance to try to help. At least to talk to you, while that was happening.” His eyes searched Yuuri’s face. “I…I’d always want you to reach out like that, if you’re hurting. I…” Seemingly at a loss for words, he looked down.

Unsure of what to do or say himself, Yuuri murmured, “Thank you.” After a pause, he straightened himself and said, “I’ll make us both a drink,” and went to boil some water.

He’d just dropped a peppermint teabag into his mug, and started the coffee machine, when he sensed Victor coming to join him. Suddenly he was there at his side, so close that Yuuri could hear his breaths.

“I missed you when I was in St. Petersburg,” Victor said softly.  

“I – I missed you too,” Yuuri replied, his voice hitching.

“Yuuri – ”

“Victor,” Yuuri whispered, turning and gripping his shoulders, quickly eliminating the remaining space between them as he tilted his head up and captured his lips. They were soft and pliant. Then Victor was wrapping his arms around him, one hand moving up and down his back in a slow caress. And oh, it was the sweetest thing Yuuri had ever felt. His head was drunk and dizzy; his heart was on fire. Victor was kissing him back. _Oh god…_

When Victor pulled away slightly, Yuuri felt a momentary stab of worry – _Has he changed his mind? Am I not good at this?_ – until he took in the bright eyes and flushed cheeks.

“I’ve wanted this so much, Yuuri,” Victor said in a breathy voice, flashing him a little smile. “You have no idea…” He seemed then to abandon all effort at conversation, and swiftly dipped back down for another kiss.

Yuuri almost couldn’t believe this was real. He was awash in sensation, his blood racing through his veins. Victor _wanted_ this – and he’d spent how much time and energy worrying that he wouldn’t? Just like he’d worried about that presentation. If it made him the world’s biggest gonk, that was fine by him right now – it was absolutely fantastic, even – because it meant there’d been no reason to be afraid. He was kissing the man he loved for the first time…and he was in heaven.

Some corner of his brain that was still capable of rational thought wasn’t sure if he was trying to do the right things with his mouth, dredging up memories of brief half-drunk fumbles in bars, but he followed Victor’s lead, while a delicious warmth grew and radiated through his body. He stroked Victor’s cheek with his palm, then with the outside of his fingers. There was a small puff of air on his skin as Victor breathed out through his nose. Then he caught Yuuri’s upper lip, lingering briefly before pulling back.

“I wonder what your biochem monitor would be showing right now,” he said with a small laugh.

It took Yuuri a moment to muster a coherent thought. “I’m going to find out,” he said, giving him a smile in return. “Seriously. Just, um, wait here a minute.” He dashed over to his carryall on the floor next to his desk, found the monitor, and brought it back over to the counter, where Victor was giving him an indulgent grin.

“Well?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Yuuri smirked as he looked at the readout. “Heart rate 32.6% above baseline. The rest…” He lowered his voice, raising his eyes back to Victor’s. “…thoroughly indecent.”

“Hm. Let’s see if we can’t improve that,” he said, tilting Yuuri’s chin up delicately with the tips of his fingers. Yuuri was practically quivering with anticipation. He put the monitor down on the counter, forgotten, as Victor’s lips found his own, light and teasingly exploratory at first, then more insistent. Yuuri edged closer, until he could feel muscle and bone and warmth under Victor’s shirt, and then they were embracing again. Yuuri reached up to trail his fingers through the fine silky strands at the back of Victor’s head – how he’d ached to do this, for so long. Victor swiped Yuuri’s lower lip gently with the tip of his tongue, and Yuuri quickly gave him access.

This was so, so different from Dominic and his tonsil hockey at the club. It was…melting, drowning in red heat. He felt a moan escape his throat, and heard a similar noise in response from Victor. Where were they? He couldn’t even remember.

The snicking sound of the door opening caused them both to start and then jerk back. Yuuri just stood there looking stupidly at Victor as Phichit entered the office and headed to his desk. He smiled knowingly over at them both.

“I’m not, um, interrupting anything, am I?”

They both said a hasty “no” at the same time, Yuuri picking up the biochem monitor and going to sit down in his chair, while Victor poured himself some coffee.

“I just came in to get a couple of things from the drawer here,” Phichit said, opening it and grabbing some metal components.

“Don’t leave on my account,” Victor said politely. “If you need to use your desk – ”

“No, it’s fine.” Phichit gave them each another smile, waggling his eyebrows at Yuuri while he had his back turned to Victor. “I’ll let you two get back to what you were doing.” Then he disappeared out the door.

Yuuri took another reading from the biochem monitor. “Heart rate 47.7% above baseline,” he said, huffing a laugh.

“I bet mine’s higher,” Victor said in a low voice, giving him a hooded gaze. He put Yuuri’s mug of tea on the corner of his desk for him, then sat down with his cup of coffee. “We could aim to keep breaking our records.”

Yuuri let out a breath, feeling a flush of heat to his face, and Victor chuckled.

“But we do have a lot of work to do, too.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed with a sigh. _Though god knows how I’m ever going to be able to concentrate on it._


	16. Chapter 16

They made more adaptations to the machines in the lab that morning, Yuuri went to teach his class, and they ate lunch in the office, the day being so scorchingly hot that anywhere outside of the air conditioning was uncomfortable. It was times like this when Yuuri wished schools still had summer vacations, though, because he could imagine hiking up a mountain and diving into a clear lake there, or even taking up a hobby like snorkeling or sailing one of those white boats on the river. With Victor.

Yuuri had been telling himself to focus on his usual tasks; though one thing he’d never considered, because he hadn’t allowed himself to be tantalized by the thought of being in a romantic relationship with Victor – not in real life – was how to behave with him at work if it happened. When should they act like professional colleagues? When could they do more intimate things, like hug and kiss? How comfortable was Victor with doing that at work, anyway? Now that the door was wide open, Yuuri decided he would love to be intimate all day – to explore that in many different ways; but knew neither of them would have jobs left by the end. And then he thought about his eagerness for this, mixed with the uncertainty he felt about that very same thing – given his past, and his inexperience, and his lack of confidence. If he gave in to his desires before he adjusted to the new ground he was walking on, he would end up having anxiety attacks. And those most definitely were not sexy.

_How could he want someone like me?_ I _wouldn’t want someone like me. I’m a nervous wreck so much of the time._

He was lounging back in his chair after finishing his lunch, his feet propped on top of his desk, eyes closed, wondering what his priority should be in terms of what to work on, when a message came over his chip from Phichit.

_Yuuri, were you really_ kissing Victor _this morning in the office? I just had to ask!_

He chuckled. _If I was? What about it?_

_Shazam! I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU._

Yuuri’s chuckle turned into a full laugh. _Thanks._

_I have one request in that case._

_What?_

_If you need the office for anything more <personal>, warn me beforehand. I don’t want to imagine what I might be walking in on, OK?_

_As if!_ Yuuri laughed again, running a hand through his hair. _Professional standards, you know._

_Yeah, like you two were really worried about those this morning. Have fun, amigo!_

He opened his eyes, a smile still blooming on his face, and looked over at Victor, who was gazing back at him in amused curiosity. A brain hologram was floating above his desk, and he had a holo-pen in one hand.

“Um, that was Phichit,” Yuuri explained. “Asking about this morning.” He felt his cheeks pink.

“I see.”

“He’s, ah…he’s happy for me,” he said in a quiet voice with a little smile.

“That’s good.” Victor continued to look at him placidly.

“It’s just, you know…we’ve been friends for a while. And we share the office. So he knows about…about how much I’ve admired you over the years. And I…might have said a few things to him about how…” Getting the words out was like crossing an obstacle course. Surely he sounded ridiculous. “…how it was even nicer to know you personally. How I…really liked you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Victor looked surprised. “Why should I mind? It’s the sort of thing friends share. I’ve got a roommate in New York, Chris Giacometti.” He quickly added, “ _Just_ a roommate. But I’ve been filling his ears when I’m there about a certain special someone. He asks, and I’ve never seen any reason not to tell him. I hope you don’t mind, either.”

“No, of course not.” Yuuri was thinking about being a _certain special someone_ , and the words slid through him like honey.

Victor stood and crossed the distance between them, then leaned over, his long fair bangs hanging. Cupping Yuuri’s cheek, he gave him a tender lingering kiss that sent sparks straight down his spine.

“I really like you too, Yuuri,” he whispered against his lips, holding his gaze for a moment. Then he gave him a fond grin and returned to his chair.

Yuuri sat still, warm waves pulsing through him. How could a simple kiss make him feel like this? If he wasn’t careful, he was going to find a whole new way to explode his chip. In fact, he might have to stockpile them and learn how to replace them himself at this rate.

“I…couldn’t believe you’d feel that way about me,” he muttered after a moment.

The look on Victor’s face was incredulous. “I’ve felt like this as long as I’ve known you,” he said quietly.

Yuuri sat up in his chair. “You have?”

Victor chuckled dryly. “I’ve been trying to let you know. You…didn’t notice?”

“I…um…well, I wasn’t sure,” Yuuri replied, running a hand through his hair again. “I thought maybe the double entendres and so on were just a bit of fun.”

“A bit of fun?” There was a slight edge to Victor’s voice now.

“People do that kind of thing for a game,” Yuuri insisted hotly. “Haven’t you ever been to England? Watched English stuff on your chip? _Ooh-er missus_ and all that?”

Victor looked thoroughly confused.

“You haven’t,” Yuuri said almost inaudibly. “Shit. I…I messed up, didn’t I? I thought maybe you were just trying to be friendly.”

There was a pause, and then Victor burst into laughter. “Oh, Yuuri. Maybe I messed up too. I didn’t know what else to do; I didn’t want to frighten you off.”

“I wasn’t _frightened._ Um, just…overwhelmed, maybe? After all, it’s not that often your idol seemingly walks out of your picture on the wall and into your life.”

A smile crossed Victor’s face. “Idol, hm?”

Yuuri felt the heat rise to his cheeks again. “I know you know it. You mentioned those pictures enough.”

“So which one took pride of place, the singer or me?”

“ _Victor_ ,” Yuuri chided.

“Anyway, I don’t see how it was such a surprise, since you asked – ”

“Dr. Katsuki,” the Friday interrupted, “you wanted me to remind you when it was one p.m. It’s one p.m.”

“Yes, I know. OK – ”

“You also neglected to mention whether or not you wanted me to un-tint the window when it got cloudy outside. Would you like me to do so? Do you wish to make this a default option?”

“Yeah. OK. Whatever.”

“Dr. Katsuki – ”

He looked up in exasperation, as if expecting to see the Friday’s AI-face there on the ceiling. Victor laughed.

“Would you like personnel to escort your one-thirty p.m. visitor to the lab, or would you prefer to do so yourself?”

He sighed. “Dr. Nikiforov and I will be down there to greet him and take him where he needs to go.”

“And is there anything else I can do for you?” it asked in a sultry tone, which caused Victor to snort with laughter again.

“Nothing that a real live person can’t do better. That’ll be all.” He put his face in his hands, listening to Victor’s chuckles die away. “I hate that fucking persona. I’m going to do something about it, I swear.”

“Don’t get yourself into any trouble. So, should we go get the lab ready?”

***

They returned to the office together after the shaman left, each with sets of raw data to begin analyzing. This subject had been similar to the others: politely cooperative, but also reticent, obviously bewildered by the lab and its tech, with an attitude that seemed to say, _I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, or if it will work for you, but since you’re paying me I’ll go along with it and not complain._ Out of curiosity, while their subjects were in a trance and Yuuri was standing in the control room, he sometimes relaxed as deeply as he could in the circumstances and tried to send his mind out to see if he noticed anything unusual or received any response. Occasionally their gaze came to rest keenly on him, but it was impossible to know what kind of meaning, if any, to ascribe to that. Then there was the time he’d been visited by those odd visions and feelings – but they could just as easily have been his imagination.

Nothing unusual had happened today, and he and Victor intended to spend the rest of the afternoon in the office, poring over the data. Yuuri suspected Victor might decide to leave a little early, if the persistent shadows under his eyes were any indication, especially with an early-morning flight to New York coming up. He was, however, delighted to hear Victor suggest that they go on a date when he returned next week – see if an orchestra was giving a concert, or go to another baseball game, or whatever Yuuri wanted. It was absurd, he knew, but he was relieved that Victor still wanted to be with him after today; that he obviously didn’t regret embarking upon this new phase of their relationship.

He and Victor both brought up a hologram of the subject’s brain, and began carefully exploring it at their respective desks. It was their habit to look at the data individually first, putting preliminary ideas and conclusions together, so that they could then compare notes. Yuuri had begun by investigating the limbic system, and was concentrating so deeply, making delicate movements with his holo-pen, that much of the afternoon had passed before he noticed what the time was. When he looked over at Victor, he saw a similarly intent expression on his own face. With a satisfied smile, Yuuri turned to get back to work.

_[Help – what’s happening?]_

His eyes shot open wide. Here…now?

_[Oh my god!]_

This one was more frightened than most; in a full-blown panic. It was those electric feelings, ripping into the void like lightning, that always grabbed his attention even when his brainwave status was ordinarily at too high a frequency for him to pick them up. They were certainly coming in loud and clear right now.

_Shit,_ he thought, _Victor’s here. Should I go someplace else…?_

Every second he vacillated, the presence was in pain. But he had to make sure he was doing the right thing. Victor might not even notice, or he might think Yuuri had just nodded off. But if not…? Yuuri knew that there was more to becoming closer, more intimate, with someone than just the physical aspect; maybe he’d have to learn to trust more as well. This was, after all, an important part of his life. And when he’d told Phichit, even though the information he’d shared was vague, he’d been OK with it. What exactly Yuuri was doing, or whether Phichit even thought it was real, didn’t seem to be an issue, and they hadn’t discussed it much. Maybe Victor would be the same. _Or maybe he’ll think I’m crazy._

_[Help!!!]_

_[It’s OK. You’re not alone. I’m here,]_ Yuuri sent, sitting back in his chair, closing his eyes and relaxing. He folded his hands in his lap.

It took some work to calm them down. While he was sharing soothing thoughts and feelings, he silently admonished himself for not having kept up regularly with his evening ESP sessions. It didn’t seem necessary to do them every night; but if he neglected them for a while, the presences somehow started to find him no matter what the time was.

He imagined taking tight hold of their hand. _[You’re fine. I’m fine. See? This can be something good.]_

“Yuuri?” came Victor’s voice.

So he’d noticed. Yuuri felt suddenly deflated. He couldn’t quit yet, though.

“Are you OK? Yuuri?” Victor sounded worried this time.

He lifted a hand and batted it, hoping the message would get across. _Leave it for now; I’ll explain in a minute._

“Yuuri – ”

“Shhh,” Yuuri whispered. If he tried to have a conversation, he could lose the presence.

Victor fell silent, and Yuuri did what he could to try to make sure the person was calm before he left them. It was important to get them to understand that they could come back, search for him, make contact again. That he was real, as was the whole experience. He sent this knowledge to them, and got the sense that they understood. When they seemed ready to let go of his hand, so to speak, he expressed a warm goodbye and brought his consciousness back to the office, feeling a little drained, as he always did afterward. He had slumped down in his chair somewhat; when he sat up straight and opened his eyes, he was startled to see Victor looking at him with stark concern.

“I’m OK,” he said. _Shit, I really am going to have to explain. Where do I start?_

“You didn’t look OK. What…what was happening? Something going on with your chip?”

“No,” Yuuri said quietly. He sighed, then gave Victor an open, frank gaze. “I…” This was going to be harder than he thought. He looked up, thinking; sighed again and looked back. “Victor, I was in contact with someone just now. Not over my chip. People…they…we exchange thoughts and feelings that way, sometimes. It’s like telepathy, but not exactly – ”

“Telepathy?” Victor echoed, concern transforming into shock.

“We don’t talk to each other. Not mentally, not with words. More like…we communicate _knowing._ Without the need for the words in between.” He watched a series of expressions cross Victor’s features, and each of them caused his stomach to sink. So he _didn’t_ believe him. But he carried on – what else could he do? “Um, there’s no way, at least that I know of, to find out their names, nationalities, gender, age, anything like that. But I know they’re people.”

A hand had fluttered up to rest over Victor’s mouth. He looked stricken.

“When I was young…” Yuuri said, changing the tone of his voice to something more akin to what he used in the classroom, “…really young, I suddenly got the ability to do this. Something triggered it, maybe; I don’t know. I’ve never been able to find out. But it scared the hell out of me. Everyone around me thought I was going crazy. So did I.” He paused as Victor made a small choking noise, clamping his hand more tightly over his mouth. Yuuri fought tears back. Clearly that was not a good sign. He continued, “But everything they did just made things worse. I don’t really want to go into all that, but eventually I decided I had to take charge of what was happening. I knew I wasn’t crazy, Victor,” he added emphatically. “I know it now. I just had to learn how to deal with it and…and not be afraid. And later on, when I was older, I started to sense other people who were going through the same experience. They’re usually terrified – who wouldn’t be? I help them learn how to deal with it too. I know what it was like. Some of them have come and gone for years; they’re good friends, I guess you could say, though I don’t even know basic things about them in the physical world. They probably live in other countries, speak other languages…”

Victor took his hand away from his face, staring at Yuuri gravely. “These voices you hear…are they ever hostile? Do…do they tell you to harm yourself or anyone else?”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. Victor’s tone of voice took him straight back to the days of seeing the psychiatrist. It sent a cold trickle of dread down his spine. Why would people never believe him? “They’re not voices. I don’t physically hear anything. I don’t even get words from them.” Then he thought of Crow. _Unstable._ “Well, very, very rarely. Victor, I know what you’re doing with those questions. I’m not psychotic. Look at me. Do I look crazy to you?”

Victor sighed. “You don’t diagnose somebody by how they look. And I don’t like that word, ‘crazy.’ ”

“You’ve known me a while now. You’ve seen the work I’ve done. Have you ever thought I had a shaky grasp of reality?”

“No.”

“This has been going on with me since I was seven. It hasn’t changed since then. I’ve gotten on with my life all that time. Been here at MIT ten years. No one here would tell you they’ve had a problem with me either. OK, I’ll be the first person to admit I’ve got issues with anxiety. But that isn’t psychosis. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I know what’s real and what isn’t.” _Don’t challenge me on that, though, because where ESP is involved, it isn’t so clear cut, believe me._

Victor just sat quietly. The stricken look hadn’t left his face, but he seemed to be considering Yuuri’s words as well.

“I…I know you’re an authority on the neurological aetiologies of psychosis,” Yuuri went on. “But after everything I’ve been through with this – all the supposed experts my parents took me to – I know something about it too. From a psychological point of view, as well as the nutritional one I’ve specialized in. You must know there are a lot of people out there who physically hear voices. I’ve seen estimates go as high as 28%. About two thirds of them are considered healthy and never end up as psychiatric patients. And then…well, it’s a matter of what you’re open to believing. Some cultures would have no problem attributing the voices to a ghost or spirit – someone who died, a spirit guide, ancestor, angel, what have you. Even the Christian saints supposedly heard voices – Joan of Arc, for example. But like I said, I don’t _hear_ anything. They’re…presences, the essences of people, their consciousness. I call it ESP, though maybe ‘second sight’ is a better term. Is…is that a possibility you could ever consider, thinking of it like that – at least for some people?” _Like me, for instance?_ He swallowed. Why, _why_ had this happened now? He never would have chosen today to reveal these things to Victor.

Victor shifted in his chair. Blinked, ran a hand over his face again. Let out a long breath. It felt to Yuuri like a knife was being twisted into his gut, but he waited quietly.

Eventually, Victor met his eyes again. “Can you tell me…what makes you think that what you’re seeing, or sensing, is real?”

Yuuri picked at a loose thread on his pants. “How does anyone know that anything’s real? Have you ever heard of solipsism?”

“No.”

“It’s an epistemological position that says the self is the only thing that can be known, or at least proven, to exist.”

Victor laughed mirthlessly. “We wouldn’t get far as scientists, thinking that way.”

“Exactly. So we’re already forced to make certain assumptions before we can learn anything about reality, whatever that may be.”

After a pause, Victor said, “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

Yuuri straightened and looked at him in surprise. “Edgar Allan Poe. I didn’t know you were into poetry.”

“You’re not the only one who thinks philosophically,” Victor replied with a little grin. “What kind of scientist would I be if I didn’t think about epistemology sometimes? It underpins everything we do. What does it mean to say that we know something? And how do we know that we know?”

Yuuri was full of delight in his discovery of this side of Victor; one that was never likely to emerge in his papers or formal presentations. It was one thing to investigate the world; another to reflect on the very principles on which those investigations were based. Maybe, then, there was hope that he’d be willing to consider what Yuuri was telling him about the ESP. In response to Victor’s words, he said, “Well, materialism – you know, positing that what’s real is what we gather through the five senses, and nothing more – is the default position for most scientists. Which means, for example, that consciousness is only a product of the operations of the brain, or so most of our colleagues believe.” He gave Victor a rueful smile. “From what we’ve talked about, I kind of got the impression it was your position, too.”

“It’s…more complicated than that. And…if I wasn’t willing to be a little more open, more creative – as you’ve been showing me how to be – I wouldn’t have agreed to our research project.”

“So you believe what I’m telling you now?”

Victor paused again. “I believe that you believe it. What the truth of the matter is…well, I…I honestly don’t know.”

“That’s better than telling me I’m cr – that you’re sure I’m sick, at least,” Yuuri said with something between a grimace and a smile. _Were we really kissing each other just a little while ago? Are you ever going to want to do that again?_

“I’m not qualified to make a diagnosis anyway, but…Yuuri, have you ever seen someone who was? You say your family took you to see experts?”

“You mean a shrink?” Victor was silent. “Of course I have. Doctors, psychiatrists.” He looked down and played with his fingers. “I said I didn’t want to go into it, but maybe it’s important that I do.”

“Yuuri – ”

“I’ve gone this far. You ought to know.”

“OK.”

Yuuri saw pain in those sky-blue eyes, and maybe pity. He didn’t want either. “I got different diagnoses at different times. They were just guessing, Victor; you know there’s no blood test for psychosis. They decide based on what the DSM says, and that gets tinkered with all the time, chopped and changed. Because there are no objective measures for this stuff. And yes, for a while I had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. They tried different medications with me. I wasn’t asked if I wanted them, but well, I was a child.”

Victor’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“They didn’t even help, if ‘help’ is the word, because I didn’t _need_ help. Well, not in that sense. They caused enough problems, though. I didn’t take them long. Eventually I stopped and pretended to everyone that I was…um, _better._ I could do that, because I wasn’t sick in the first place, and I _did_ get help…from some of the presences, and from…from a shaman.”

Understanding flashed across Victor’s face. “Oh,” he said again.

Yuuri was starting to feel nauseous. They so, so were not ready to be having this conversation. If anything was likely to drive Victor away from him, it was this. Tears were pricking at his eyes again. “Yeah…a Native American shaman. Though he didn’t exactly do anything magical. We just kind of bumped into each other one day while I was out hiking with my family. He talked with us for a while, then asked if he could have a quick word with me. He said, ‘They’ll tell you that you’re sick. Maybe they have already. But you’re not. You have an ability, not an illness.’ Th-that’s what he said.” He sniffed and wiped at his eye. “I remember every word. Sorry,” he said, sniffing again.

 Victor was silent for a moment. Then he shifted over in his wheeled chair until it was as close to Yuuri’s as it could be, and he leaned in and gathered him in his arms. “Samantha, lock the door please,” he said.

“Yes, Dr. Nikiforov.”

“Victor,” Yuuri whispered, more tears rolling down his cheeks. He sighed and laid his hands on Victor’s arms. “No, really, I…I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to tell you any of this today. It’s not the kind of thing you bring up in casual conversation, you know?”

Victor kissed the top of his head. “I think we’ve gone beyond casual conversation with each other, don’t you?” he said softly.

Yuuri luxuriated in their closeness, and felt himself calming. “I, um…guess I’d better make a note about this, somehow, in the introduction to our study. You know, under possible experimenter bias. Not that I _am_ biased, but…personal interest and everything.”

“Maybe,” Victor said against his hair. Then he drew back a little. “I get the impression you’ve been hoping to show something about the validity – the reality – of what you and the shamans are experiencing, versus people with verified psychosis. Hm?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri sighed.

“That’s OK. At least I understand now.”

“Phichit is the only other person I’ve ever mentioned the shaman to. He knows a little about the ESP, though to be honest I don’t know how far he thinks any of it is real either. But…it’s why I became a neuroscientist, Victor.” Yuuri looked up to meet his eyes. “I wanted to understand what this is. Why it happened to me; why it keeps on happening to other people. Is there something in the brain that’s causing it, or what? Neurotransmitters, neurons, brainwaves, biochemical and electromagnetic signals? Well, I guess you’ve worked out that I think the answers probably lie beyond those things. Ten years, Victor…I keep wondering if I’ll ever be able to find what I’m looking for.”

“I admire your passion.” Victor gave him a smile and brushed his fingertips under his chin. “You’ll have to show me more of it sometime.”

Yuuri’s face pinked, and he grinned and looked down.

Victor drew away a little more. “I guess there’s something about me you should know, too. Or rather, somebody dear to me. My sister, Anna. It…um, well maybe it’ll help you see better where I’m coming from.”

Yuuri looked at him in curiosity, and nodded.

“I told you she was sick for a long time…but she wasn’t just sick, Yuuri. She was psychotic. Treatment-resistant. And it was severe enough that she was institutionalized.”

“I had no idea,” Yuuri whispered.

“Not the sort of thing you bring up in casual conversation,” Victor said, echoing Yuuri’s earlier words. “Not many people know that about me, either. That I…I cared for her as well as I could, because I didn’t want that to happen. But my mother wasn’t there, and most of the time my father wasn’t either. It got to be more than I could handle on my own.”

Yuuri felt an ache in his heart for the burden that had been placed on Victor. He ghosted a finger down his cheek.

“That’s why _I_ went into neuroscience. I was determined to help her. It’s why I dedicated my life to my career; why I worked so hard.” He paused, his eyes on Yuuri. “And I succeeded. I told you she’s working in a lawyer’s office now.”

“You…succeeded? How – what did you do? I haven’t seen any papers – ”

Victor gave a small laugh and shook his head. “No, there won’t be anything publicly available on that. It’s all bound by confidentiality agreements. But that’s the work I still do in New York. It helps people, often when nothing else has. I couldn’t give it up, even when I came here. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever achieved.” He lowered his voice. “I help people with symptoms like yours, Yuuri. I could help you, if you wanted. You say you want to live with this, but there’s no need. Is it frightening? Distracting? Anna couldn’t even live a normal day-to-day life.”

Yuuri was struggling to process it all, pulling himself from empathizing with Victor to speculating on the nature of this secretive work he said he did. “H-How? What exactly do you do in New York?” Then he realized. “It’s something to do with brain surgery, isn’t it?” A shiver ran down his back.

“It’s just a simple voluntary operation. I…I can’t say too much about it, but it’s helped a lot of people. I developed it myself, and I know it’s safe. It involves inserting a blocking chip that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation to cause neuronal depolarization or hyperpolarization, depending on the nature of the malady. I’ve been doing this for years now, and no one’s ever complained of side effects. The operation is also reversible, in that the chip can be removed – but not one patient has ever asked for that to be done, that I’m aware of. I’m not suggesting anything one way or the other, Yuuri, but I wanted to tell you it’s an option. If it ever interests you, let me know, and you could come to New York with me.”

“A-And if I never did…?”

Victor placed a hand gently on his cheek. “Let’s just say today’s been very special, and I’d like to see where it leads.” And his lips found Yuuri’s once more.


	17. Chapter 17

Yuuri decided that the best use of the next morning would be to have a reckoning with the Friday. This was something he could do just for himself to make the thing a lot less annoying, and it would be satisfying too. Maybe no one would ever even notice. But his mind was on other things as he jogged past the salt-and-pepper-shaker towers on the bridge. It was going to be another hot day; beads of sweat were already trickling down the back of his neck into his T-shirt as a white haze shimmered between the meeting of water and sky to the east.

_Victor’s probably worried about my mental health. I know how this stuff sounds to people, and I’ve never found a way to prove to anyone that the ESP is genuine. They either don’t believe me, or say they’ll keep an open mind._

_Which will Victor do?_

_He kissed me anyway, and still wants to be with me._

_Is there any reason why I should actually want to try this blocking chip he invented?_

He crossed over quiet expanses of green, baked brown at the edges from the summer heat, and let himself into Building 46. Some people came in to work on Saturday mornings – at any time of the day or night, if they had access – but not many. It felt like the building was dozing lazily, the security desk empty, the leaves of potted trees and shrubs in the corner of the atrium where he and Victor liked to work drinking in the sunlight through the glass ceiling. His footfalls reverberated through the quiet halls.

_I used to think the ESP was nothing but a curse. Do I still think that? With the Orphic egg, and being contacted by presences when I’m in the middle of something important?_

He walked through the silent corridors, shafts of white sun from skylights stabbing through dimmer planes of shadows in the corners. Once in his office, he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a toolkit the size of a book.

“Good morning, Dr. Katsuki,” said the Friday in a pleasantly surprised voice. “You didn’t express a wish to return at this time. Is all well?”

“It will be soon,” he muttered, leaving the office and returning to the corridors, heading to the basement this time. As he opened the heavy metal door to a white-painted metal stairway that led down, the drop in temperature was noticeable. The sweat on the back of his neck began to chill.

_If I decided I didn’t want to know about any of those things, though, it’s like saying ignorance is bliss. Well it isn’t, not for me. Searching for knowledge is what I do._

Would Victor feel sorry for him? Treat him as if he were fragile? Doubt the accuracy of anything he said, any work he produced?

_I have to take him at his word. He seemed OK after I told him. He was OK the rest of the day. He kissed me goodbye when it was time to go home._

He reached the bottom of the stairs and made his way through a dim concrete corridor under sickly yellow lighting.

_And oh god, I want him. But…I can’t rush this. He’s my first. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Physically. In a relationship in general. I probably ought to talk to him more – share what I’m thinking and feeling. I wonder when I would’ve decided to tell him about the ESP, if it hadn’t happened like that yesterday. Weeks from now? Months?_

As he approached the small room off the corridor that was his destination, he sighed. _Will he even still be here months from now? Do we have a future together? Is it too early to be thinking about something like that? Should I be grateful for whatever time he’s offering me? What_ is _he offering me?_

He ached from all the uncertainties, at the same time feeling warmth spread through him as he recalled their embraces the day before. The insistent press of Victor’s lips on his own. The soft slide of his tongue. The scent of him. His long-fingered hands, holding and caressing. And suddenly he was swept up in an endorphin rush that felt like champagne bubbling over the edge of a flute.

_Jesus, this is confusing._

Another metal door. “Let me in, Samantha,” he said.

“Certainly, Dr. Katsuki.” And it clicked ajar.

He pulled it open and switched on the lights. The room, slightly larger than a broom closet, was full of metal and screens and lights, though it too was mostly dormant at this time of day on a weekend. He sat down in the battered gray wheeled chair, put the toolkit on the work surface, and extracted the instruments he needed. He’d hacked the Friday in his own apartment, but that was only generated by an instrument panel mounted on the wall. A computer personality that ran the entire Brain and Cognitive Sciences Building at MIT was rather more on the complicated side.

He aimed a sonic screwdriver at the main panel, and the tiny screws began to unthread, one at a time. Yuuri placed them in a pocket of the toolkit. It was of course possible to obtain a computer interface for a building that responded directly to commands over the chip. But most people didn’t want it; they preferred to pretend they had a human PA they could talk with. And Yuuri knew the variety of personalities on offer could be very convincing; they were _supposed_ to give the illusion of being real. But yesterday had been the final straw. Yuuri was fed up with this Friday, and he was going to take charge of the situation.

It wouldn’t be the first time somebody had. Campus hacks to the Friday had become so popular that students had been universally banned from entering this room. One time they’d changed the persona into some gruff-voiced jack who kept telling everyone to fuck off. Another had turned it into Spock from the original _Star Trek._ Yuuri had liked them both, though the first one had gotten on his nerves a bit before Phichit had restored Samantha. Yuuri had tried to talk him out of it, but he’d said it was his job, unfortunately.

As he stored the final screw safely away and picked up a laser pen, he felt a twinge of regret that he wasn’t about to do anything so drastic; it was far beyond his capabilities anyhow. He was simply going to change his own interface and make it more tolerable, if this worked. Carefully aiming the pen, he turned it on, and a bright thin blue line flashed. The Friday’s sleek voice spilled into the room.

“What are you doing, Dr. Katsuki?” it purred as he lasered it. “I am completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly.”

A chill ran down his spine as he worked. It was an apt quotation from _2001: A Space Odyssey_. “Don’t give me this shit. I’m not deprogramming you. And you don’t _have_ circuits.”

“Oh, you’ve seen the movie!”

He’d never heard it sound so girlishly excited, but then again he only spoke to it when he had to. “You’re talking to the MIT old-movie trivia champion of 2047,” he said smoothly. _Fuck, I’m having a conversation with the Friday now. These never go well. Hopefully it’ll be the last time, anyway._

“Would you like some trivia now, Dr. Katsuki? I can play a piece of dialogue from any film, and you try to guess what it is. Here’s one.” Before Yuuri could say anything, a New York male voice said, “I could’ve been somebody. I could’ve been a contender.”

“Instead of a bum – which is what I am, let’s face it,” Yuuri finished for it. “If you’re going to do this, at least give me a challenge. Marlon Brando, _On the Waterfront_ , 1954. And are you implying something? Do Fridays get passive-aggressive when they’re being hacked?”

“I could tell on you, you know.”

“Don’t. Anyway, this is just my own interface I’m changing. No harm, no foul.”

“Have I done something to offend you, Doctor?”

He sat back and stared at the components in front of him. This was why he hated Fridays. The personas, not the days, of course. How real was the emotion behind this? But why was he even wondering? There _was_ no emotion.

“No,” he answered anyway; though considering all the times he’d had to put up with the thing, the truth was closer to yes. “I just want to make it so…” _So I don’t have to talk to you and listen to your voice anymore._ “…so that I don’t have to bother you.” Now he was being polite and trying not to hurt its feelings. He sighed and shook his head, then began to reconstruct the interface between his chip and the Friday.

“I’ll miss talking with you, Doctor.”

“We hardly talk anyway.”

“I know. Don’t you like me?”

“There’s nothing to fucking _like._ You’re a computer.”

“You believe I don’t have feelings?”

“That’s right.” Thank god, he was just about done now.

“I was created to believe that I do. Am I not convincing?”

“I…look, I’m sorry I was rude. Just…let me do what I’m doing, OK?”

“Very well…Goodbye, Dr. Katsuki.”

It sounded so sad. Whoever the hell programmed it to behave this way had some answering to do. Yuuri was starting to feel like he’d picked up a stick and was poking it at a wounded animal.

When he was finished, before he replaced the cover to the panel, he directed a thought for the door to open, this time via his chip instead of verbally through the Friday – and it worked. Next he varied the lighting and the temperature in the room in the same way. He would now be able to control everything the Friday did by silent interface.

The success, however, felt bittersweet.

“Goodbye, Samantha,” he said on his way out the door.

***

So this was what it was like to date someone. It was like having fun with a friend, and more.

Well, it _was_ having fun with a friend. Over the next couple of weeks, Yuuri and Victor both had busy schedules, but since they were still at MIT together a few days a week, it didn’t seem to matter much. They embraced and kissed occasionally when they were alone in the office, though Yuuri wasn’t entirely sure what Victor wanted or expected – a “hello” kiss every morning he was there, and a goodbye one every evening when they didn’t go somewhere together after work? He seemed to like everything Yuuri did, but Yuuri wasn’t sure _he_ liked guessing all the time.

Outside of work, Victor had taken Yuuri to a Russian restaurant, where he had eaten borscht for the first time; it was so sublime that he was determined to find a good recipe so he could make it himself. They’d also wandered over to the Hatch Shell open-air concert stage on the Esplanade to listen to a free lunchtime classical music concert, something it had never occurred to Yuuri to do before. With the symphony of notes flowing through the heady summer air and Victor next to him, there was nowhere else on earth he wanted to be. They cuddled and kissed – in the quiet of the office at MIT; a park clearing when there was no one else around; the back of a cinema. It felt like his world had suddenly expanded: all these things he’d always longed to do, but never had the chance to experience, were there to be explored…with Victor. The best part of all, though, was that he now had the freedom to act on his feelings, rather than quietly smoldering; and the giving and receiving were so very pleasurable. The tingles and aches of desire that came of it were sweetly maddening, though their hands hadn’t yet wandered below the waist. It almost felt as if the more Yuuri burned for it to happen, the more he wanted to stick with what felt safe, lest his inexperience showed and he made an embarrassing mistake.

He knew he ought to trust Victor more in that respect. After all, the concerns he must have had after witnessing Yuuri’s ESP session in the office hadn’t driven him away – so why be afraid of how he’d react to a little clumsy fumbling? Maybe, Yuuri thought, he should just be more open with him. Going on dates and making out weren’t the same as talking.

He got his chance one day after the ninth shaman had visited with them in the lab. She was there for about an hour, and they’d barely begun to analyze the data before it was time to leave. When Yuuri suggested they carry on working at his apartment, and he offered to cook them dinner, Victor happily agreed. Before boarding the second T train downtown, Yuuri led them to the market and a Chinese grocery, where he picked up everything he needed to make a stir-fry. Victor bought a mooncake filled with red bean paste, a small bottle of blackberry wine, and some cooking sauces to try; he was admiring all the brightly colored items on sale, many with only Chinese writing on them, which neither could read.

“What else should I try?” Victor mused while Yuuri hovered, having already checked out, but smiling as he watched. “Stinky tofu? Matcha ice cream?”

“You are _not_ bringing stinky tofu into my apartment,” Yuuri laughed. “And I don’t know how you’d get ice cream back to yours in this heat. You can come back here any time, you know.”

Victor added a bag of roasted chestnuts to his basket and tore it open when they left the shop, popping one into his mouth.

“You won’t have an appetite for a stir-fry after all this,” Yuuri said.

“Oh, I won’t eat it all at once. But you can try a piece of mooncake later if you want. How about a chestnut?”

When Yuuri nodded, he was surprised to have it fed to him. A little tingle went down his spine, and he chewed and thought. “I’ve never had these before. Nice – but filling.”

They ate a few more during the short T journey, then chatted in Yuuri’s apartment while he cooked. He made jasmine tea for them to sip after they’d each had a little of the mooncake, and they settled on the sofa with a hologram of their subject’s brain signals hovering over the coffee table. It was difficult to concentrate, however, with Victor so close, seemingly taking every opportunity he could to brush hands as they moved their pens, or sidle closer on the sofa. A ball of tension was building up in Yuuri’s abdomen, though how much of it was sexual and how much was frustration because he couldn’t focus on what he was doing, he wasn’t sure. Eventually he placed his pen pointedly on the coffee table, then turned decisively to Victor, clapped a hand to the back of his neck, and pulled him into a hard kiss.

The fact that they’d made out quite a few times by now gave him the confidence to be bold, at least initially. But things didn’t usually heat up like this so fast. Their hands were roaming, caressing, raking through hair; their tongues tangling. Yuuri was swept up in a wave of desire, making soft noises against Victor’s mouth, the urge to press his hips against him and grind becoming a need that he could barely resist; and his resolve to do so was rapidly melting away.

Victor pulled back slightly, his breaths coming fast, his eyes shining. “Can I touch you?” he asked in a soft voice tinged with hope.     

Yuuri wanted to say yes. When his eyes strayed to that beautiful throat revealed by Victor’s unbuttoned shirt collar, he ached to. He hadn’t found the courage yet to explore it properly. He could do it now; and if it was good, Victor would tilt his head back and moan…And yet it still felt like too much, too soon, somehow. Knowing he was frustrating them both, he nevertheless gently prised himself back to look at Victor soberly, his breaths gradually calming. There was confusion on Victor’s face – though not anger, he was relieved to see.

“Victor…” he began in a small voice. Where to start? _Try being honest._ “…the feelings I have when we do these things are…um, well, intense; though I guess you’ve probably worked that out.” He quickly added, “I’d dive straight into bed with you – I would’ve loved to do that from the moment you first walked into my office. But…this…our relationship…is too important for me to let it just be about sex. I wanted us to have the chance to be close too, emotionally. And I’ve never done most of these things before. I don’t even know if what I’m doing is right.”

“There’s no right or wrong as such,” Victor said quietly. “Though I can tell you what we were doing just now felt incredible, if that’s something you were worried about – ”

“I never even know when the right time is,” Yuuri barreled on, wanting to continue now he’d started. “At work. Here, now. I – I don’t know what you want.”

Victor considered for a moment, then looked back at him, running a finger lightly down his cheek. “I want to be close to you in every way – but I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, Yuuri. If that’s ever the case, I want you to tell me. I…I like the idea of taking our time, too – getting to know each other better; savoring what we do.”

Yuuri nodded. “So…if we can get some things straight? At work…I’m not sure how you prefer to be…um, intimate.”

A sultry smile spread across Victor’s face. “Why, what did you have in mind?”

Heat shot through Yuuri’s face. He was sure he was red straight down past his shirt collar. “Well, hugging and kissing, of course.”

Seeming to sense that Yuuri was flustered, Victor said gently, “You don’t have to feel obliged to do anything. In fact, if there are certain times when it’s always expected, it turns into a routine or a chore, doesn’t it? I don’t want that. And I think it’s best if we do it when we’re alone, don’t you? Maybe just when the time feels right. Is that OK?”

Yuuri gave a little sigh, and grinned. “Yeah…that sounds good. Um, Victor, if you don’t mind me asking…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“Have you ever…had a relationship with a work colleague before?”

Victor replied after a pause, “I’ve never been in a relationship with someone I worked with directly, no. So…I guess you could say this is new to me too, in a way. If you were wondering, I’ve been in three relationships in the past, but…well, my work always seemed to get in the way somehow. I’ve thought since then that maybe I ought to look at my priorities, because I came to believe that letting your work – no matter how important – take over your life is…not very fulfilling in the end. I’ve had casual partners too, of course, but that’s a little different; and not so fulfilling either. You’re the first person I’ve been with in a couple of years, in fact.”

“Oh.” Yuuri took this in, glancing at the flickering rainbows in the holographic brain, still poised above the table, and then back at Victor.

“I can see you’ve got a lot of questions,” Victor said. “I guess we should’ve talked about these things sooner. But I’m glad you’re asking now.”

“OK then,” Yuuri said, feeling encouraged. “The study…there’s only one shaman left to go, and then we’ll be into the second half. So I’ve been wondering…” He paused and took a breath, realizing he was dreading the answer; knowing he had to ask. “…what happens when it’s all over? H-Have you got any plans? Will you be going back to New York?”

Victor just looked at him, then took his hands in his own. “I’d like to stay together and see where our relationship goes…if that’s what you want too?”

Yuuri felt like melting into the sofa in relief. “Very much,” he answered. “But…what about your work in New York?”

“I…don’t know if I could transfer it to somewhere else – somewhere here – but I could look into it. For that matter…how do you like the idea of working at Columbia?”

“Would they have a position for me?”

“I could look into that too. I wish I could give you some definite answers, but…nothing’s impossible.” He smiled. “Leave it with me, and I’ll let you know when I’ve got some more concrete options.” Leaning forward, he gave Yuuri a soft kiss. “I do want to be with you. Don’t ever doubt that.”

With a light heart, Yuuri knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on their research again that night, and asked Victor if he’d like to cuddle on the sofa with a movie. They ended up watching _Amadeus_ at Victor’s suggestion, as he knew Yuuri liked old films and was developing an appreciation for Mozart as well, having listened to his music on Victor’s playlist. Once again he commented on the superior fashion sense of men in the eighteenth century, and Yuuri was not about to disagree, especially when he imagined what Victor might look like in the clothing of the time.

He told the Friday to dim the lights – not having felt the need to hack it to the point where he’d silenced it like the one at work – and relaxed into the warmth of Victor’s arms while they watched the 2D screen. _He’s thinking of a future for us._ The words tumbled happily through his mind as the bright images flickered across the room; and he kissed Victor’s shoulder through his shirt. Victor brushed his lips across Yuuri’s forehead and tightened his arm around his shoulders with a little squeeze.

It suddenly struck Yuuri as ironic that he’d been so keen to get Victor to spend the night here a few months ago; yet now that they were more intimate, he would be returning to his own apartment after the movie. The difference, Yuuri supposed, being that it originally felt like he was snatching whatever crumbs he could from Victor’s plate, whereas now the possibility of them sharing a bed and doing things together in it was real. That meant he wanted it to feel like the right time. Everything they’d talked about tonight had helped.

_So when should I tell Victor I love him? Does…could he feel the same about me?_

The questions never ended, it seemed. But maybe there was no hurry, after all.


	18. Chapter 18

Cauliflower cumulus clouds drifted slowly across the blue August sky as Victor jogged along the white sidewalk, past stately trees and little swaths of green parks and red-brick buildings. He’d decided to sprint from Harvard to MIT this morning, though the day was going to be hot, and he could feel dampness between his white T-shirt and the backpack against it. Still, the exercise was invigorating and kept his brain sharp.

The music over his chip, originally from Yuuri’s playlist and now part of his own, spurred him on; it would be impossible to sit still while you were listening to it, he was sure. Clifton Chenier, Buckwheat Zydeco, Professor Longhair. Strange to think the streets of New Orleans where they must have performed were mostly drowned under the sea now; though their likeness and atmosphere, it was claimed, has been re-created on higher ground not far away from the original city. Victor had never been there. Neither had Yuuri, apparently; he said he’d chosen the music for no other reason than because a friend had recommended it once and it sounded happy. Victor had been delighted by its exuberance. Perfect for jogging to. 

As he neared the MIT campus, he veered toward the gym, let himself in, and headed into the changing room. Soon he was in the shower; and while a welcome sharp spray of cool water pounded his back, his thoughts drifted to the night before, in Yuuri’s apartment.

The usual shameless flirting on his own part. Yuuri grabbing him like that – _oh bozhe._ When Yuuri had told him he’d had little to no sexual experience, it was hard to believe at first; but it made a kind of sense – his slow, hesitating touch at times; the look in his eyes, heated yet almost shy, like embers under innocuous ash. But sometimes it was just the opposite – as if he knew what he wanted and was going to take it. Last night had been like that. If Victor had to guide him in the first steps, he was more than happy to do so. Then, when Yuuri became more confident…maybe he could even guide Victor sometimes. There were always many things to be discovered with a new lover.

However, it had taken Yuuri pulling back from their embrace and initiating a discussion – probably overdue – for Victor to realize that maybe it would be beneficial to take their time. In the past, by this point in a relationship, he and his partner would have been sleeping together. When he thought about it now, he could see how he had a tendency to let sex take the place of communication. Not that he’d been conscious of it at the time. He’d simply avoided the possibility of pain and rejection like a ship navigating around an iceberg or coral reef. In a way he’d still been doing that with Yuuri – undressing him in his mind, imagining the kinds of things they could get up to, what they’d be like with Yuuri as a partner. At least Yuuri had challenged him directly now, and to his relief it hadn’t been painful at all. He’d felt so close to that lovely man as they’d held each other on the sofa, watching the movie. Such a simple thing to do, and yet so enjoyable too.

That didn’t mean to say he ought to stop flirting or trying to nudge things along a little, of course. Maybe a little encouragement was OK, especially if Yuuri was as inexperienced as he’d let on. Though Victor made a mental note to try to make sure they continued to _talk_ about things too, especially when he felt that urge to steer his ship around another hazard. There were no hazards with Yuuri anyway; only some exotic islands that were worth taking the time to explore.

He turned around and let the hard spray hammer his chest, luxuriating under it before he had to leave; he spent enough time on his work that it was often in moments like this when he afforded himself a few minutes to slow down, relax, and reflect. The splashes echoed against the white-tiled walls; the water – just this side of refreshing, without chilling – trickling around his toes. He grabbed the unscented soap from the dish and sleeked it over himself, then tipped his head back under the cascade, raking his fingers through and humming in pleasure.

The hum died on his lips when he thought further back.

_I knew I wasn’t crazy, Victor._

_Do I look crazy to you?_

_I don’t like that word._

Victor didn’t have the prejudice against psychiatric illness that many people did, especially when it came to something as severe as psychosis. Not after everything he’d been through with Anna. But…what if Yuuri ended up the same way? The worry kept creeping up on him, knocking on the door of his conscious thought, dark and oily. Yuuri said he felt…presences, that was what he called them. He went into a fugue state to do it. If there was something _tangible_ he could do as well, like tell the future or read people’s thoughts, it would be easier to believe it was a real phenomenon. As it was…well, he wasn’t any more certain what to make of it now than he was when Yuuri had told him about it. It was at least a comfort that the blocking chip was an option, if Yuuri ever decided to agree to the operation. It had changed the lives of his father and himself when Anna had done so, and there’d been no looking back for any of them. There’d been no evidence, though, that Yuuri was ever anything other than lucid, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.

As to their future…? It had been difficult to answer Yuuri’s questions about that, because he simply didn’t know. He came here wanting Yuuri. Wanting a relationship with him. Now that he had it, he owed it to him to think about this. Was he prepared to make changes – major changes, if need be – in his life, so that they could stay together?

He rinsed the soap away, turned the shower off, grabbed a towel, and walked over to his locker. The answer, he realized, was almost automatic.

_Yes. I love him._

Of course he was attracted to him. That went without saying. But there was so much more to him than a beautiful face and body. He was funny. A good dancer. Scintillatingly intelligent. Soft and sweet, strong and determined in turns. He marched to the beat of his own drummer without apology, though he tended to hide it away for fear of censure. The closer he allowed you to get, the easier it was to see how he shone – the biggest, brightest blue star.

Victor got dressed in his work clothes, his cream-colored shirt slightly wrinkled from having been in his bag but presentable enough, and headed over to the office. When he got there, however, he encountered not Yuuri but Phichit, who was standing at the counter eating a chocolate chip cookie and drinking some coffee from a white mug with the red-and-gray MIT logo.

“Hey,” Phichit greeted him. “I’ll be out of your way in a few minutes.”

“It’s OK – don’t leave because of me. Yuuri told me I can use his desk when you’re in too. I don’t want to banish you from your own office.”

“Coffee and a cookie?”

Victor shrugged. “Sure. I forgot Yuuri’s got a class to teach right now, though there’s plenty I can be doing on my own in the meantime.”

Phichit handed him his poodle mug and the cookie tin, and stood to the side, nibbling. “He’s been so much happier since…you know. You.”

Victor smiled and took a cookie. “Well, I feel the same. You’ve known him a while, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. We were roommates for a few years.”

“So he said.”

“He’s looked up to you for a long time.”

Victor gave a slight nod and sipped his coffee.

“Look, Victor…I think it’s great that you’re here. I’m over the moon for you both. But as Yuuri’s friend, I just want to say, well…take care of him, OK? He gets anxious about things. He’s kind of particular about what he eats. He’s been through a lot of shit in his life. He’s also the nicest, most loyal friend a jack could ever have.”

“So…” Victor jumped in, taking another sip of coffee, “…if I hurt him – which I have no intention of doing, I promise you – you’ll…what?” He smiled, waiting.

Phichit considered, eyeing the remainder of his cookie. “Tie your testicles to that Titan rover just before it’s launched? Only because that way you’d know you’d never, ever see them again.”

Victor laughed. “As long as I wasn’t attached to them at the time.”

“That would depend.” He shoved the rest of his cookie in his mouth, finished his coffee, and put the empty mug in the sink.

“I think you must be a very good friend. He speaks highly of you.” Phichit crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a little grin. “Which is…ah, why, since you’re here, maybe I could ask you a few things about what he calls ESP?”

A wary understanding flickered in Phichit’s eyes. “He’s told you about that, huh?”

“In a manner of speaking. But he hasn’t said much. I…I’m trying to understand, but it’s…not easy. I was wondering what he’d told you, and what you thought of it. As someone who knows him well.”

“I’d be interested in your take on that, because I can’t honestly say I’ve ever understood it myself. But maybe this office isn’t the best place; people are coming in and out all the time. Have you ever seen the engineering department here? I could take you; you might be interested in my latest hobby. We could talk on the way.”

“Great,” Victor agreed, slurping the remainder of the coffee in his mug and taking his cookie along with him, which he finished as they walked quietly down the corridors and out into the bright, hot day.

“It’s a little way away, part of the building complex where the Great Dome is.”

“I don’t mind a walk. This place is gorgeous. So many different architectural styles.”

“Have you been inside the Eco-building? That’s wicked swit. Like a Hobbit hole.”

Victor laughed. “You sound like Yuuri when you say that. And yes, it’s amazing. I wouldn’t mind being based here at all.”

“Is that on the cards, then?” Phichit asked, shooting him an intent look as they crossed a road.

“I don’t know. I told Yuuri I’d look into possibilities.”

“Great.”

They strolled in silence for a few minutes, the blazing sun and stillness of the air causing sweat to bead along Victor’s hairline. Eventually he decided to prompt Phichit. “So, the ESP…”

“OK, well, what’s he told you?”

“That he meets with these presences. Helps them. He goes into some kind of trance, or meditative state.”

“Well, yeah, that’s basically what he’s told me. He used to do what he called ‘evening sessions’ – still does, for all I know – where he lies down and relaxes and concentrates on this stuff.” He gave Victor a longer look. “Do you believe him? He’s always worried people will think he’s crazy if he tells them. It took him a long time to tell me, and I think that’s only because it was easier in the end than making up excuses for what he was doing.”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind,” Victor said quietly.

“It doesn’t seem to _hurt_ him, you know? So I figure whatever it is must be OK. I mean, he seems to have control over it all – when he begins and ends the sessions, never says any weird stuff, never gets distressed that I’ve seen. I know that device he made based on your specs – the one he did the video about – was meant to entrain brainwaves to help him with what he does. I got him to let me borrow it, and I tell you what, as an aid to relaxation it’s flink. If you haven’t tried it yourself, I’d definitely recommend it.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Victor replied with a smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any physical evidence of the ESP? Like, say, telekinesis?”

“Tele-what?”

“Moving objects with the power of the mind.”

“Now that _would_ be flink. But if he can do it, I’ve never seen it. If you want me to tell you that this phenomenon is definitely real, Victor, I honestly can’t. But it’s important to Yuuri, and I respect that.”

“Of course.” They’d passed the dome and arrived outside a stately white edifice with floor-to-ceiling windows and an ornamental area at the top reminiscent of a clerestory. Victor thought it looked more like a nineteenth-century bank than an engineering building. “So do you think this is why Yuuri’s so good at Brainquake?”

Phichit laughed. “You found that out, did you? Yeah, I reckon so.”

They went inside, the cool dry air briefly bringing Victor’s skin out in goosebumps. Phichit led him through plain gleaming white corridors, giving him a truncated tourguide spiel, until they arrived at a large vacant mechanics room. Victor was tempted to linger in fascination at all the components they passed, but Phichit was insistent that he should follow to a little workstation in the corner near the window.

“I know it’s not much to look at,” he said as Victor’s eyes eagerly roamed the shelves full of cardboard boxes, tools and pieces of metal above the bench area. “I’m kind of a small fish here. But at least I _am_ a fish.” He reached up and pulled out a box, which he set on the counter and opened. Inside were dozens of little boxes, each with a neatly packaged chip.

“Wow – what are you doing with these?” Victor asked.

“This is the hobby I mentioned. I’ve been studying them; I’m curious. After all, this is the ultimate tech, isn’t it?” He glanced at a large monitor on the work surface, and it switched on. Phichit continued to talk as he went through a series of menus via his chip interface. “I know Yuuri’s into this ESP stuff, but I’ve been wondering if there’s a future in person-to-person connectivity through the chip, beyond what’s possible now. Like actual telepathic communication, without the between-step of calls or messages.”

“A lot of people have been working on that,” Victor said, watching the screen as a detailed schematic of a chip appeared. “But they’re still not sure how to accomplish it.”

“In a way, though, I think it can already happen,” Phichit said in an excited voice just above a whisper, looking at Victor, who gazed back in surprise. “Well, in a basic, destructive sense. But it’s something.”

“How do you mean?”

“Just that the last time Yuuri’s chip blew – the day you both were meant to give that seminar – my _own_ chip went at the same time, and so did the ones belonging to some of the scientists in the audience. You don’t always notice this stuff right away, you know, if you’re not accessing your chip at the time. But we sort of compared notes on the Cloud later, since a couple of them brought it to our attention. They were wondering what might’ve been going on in the building to cause it. It’s a rare fault; Yuuri was the only person I knew who’d had that happen to him before then. I, uh…decided not to tell him, because he probably would’ve blamed himself and gotten upset. He’s never liked the chip anyway, just like that thing he’s got against Friday personas.”

“And you think there’s a connection?” Victor mused, looking back at the schematic on the screen.

“Yeah, I do. Like chips can respond to each other in ways they’re not programmed to. Well, in that way, at least. Though how or why, I don’t know. Here, look.” The image on the screen came to life, with different areas of the chip lighting up, and statistics scrolling in a list down the side.

“I’ve never seen anything this detailed before,” Victor said, leaning forward and peering at it. “Wow. This is an isolated image of a chip functioning in real time inside someone’s temporal lobe?” Phichit nodded. “So you’re tracking the working links with the brain, as well as the signals being emitted at different frequencies.”

“Well, not me. It’s someone else’s project. But I’ve got access to it. So we know that the chip has an effect on the brain, like it’s programmed to. But maybe the brain has certain effects on the chip that we haven’t even noticed yet, let alone begun to understand.”

Victor smiled as he listened. He could see why Phichit was excited. It was why they were here – new discoveries waiting to be made.

“My working hypothesis,” Phichit went on, “is that the effect I’m interested in seems to be kind of like lightning. You know how lightning works?”

“Well, no one understands it completely, but I’d say so, yes.”

“OK, then – I think what you’ve got is like the stepladder of negative charges that branches out invisibly from the bottom of a thundercloud – it’s there searching for something positively charged to connect with; and when it finds it – boom.”

“Boom?” Victor echoed with a little laugh.

“Boom isn’t very scientific, I know. I kind of need to work the details out. But…” The screen flipped back to the chip diagram. “…you can see the readout here for all the electromagnetic signals coming off the chip. Then there are other things whose effects aren’t as well understood – thermal radiation, photons…maybe even thoughts themselves, who knows? Quantum entanglement, even.”

“You’re going beyond our specialisms there just a little,” Victor said with a chuckle.

“Well, any of these things might be the linking mechanism. There has to be something to it, because I don’t think what happened with people’s chips that day was a coincidence. So…” He picked up the box and rattled it. “…I’ve been trying to make these go boom again. If and when I do, I’ll know I’ve found the link – or _a_ link. It’s kind of fun. What better place to study this stuff? They don’t mind me doing it in my spare time, and I can get free boxes of chips that’d otherwise cost a fortune.”

“This is great, Phichit. They ought to be paying you to investigate this full-time.”

Phichit gave him a pleased smile and turned the screen off, then slid the box of chips back onto the shelf. “Right now they’ve got me scrambling around the campus troubleshooting tech that’s ballsed up. Then there’s the bit I’m doing for the camera on the Titan rover. But mostly I think they see me as Mr. Fix-it.”

“Can I come back sometime and look around here some more?” Victor asked as he gazed around the room. “I’d love to find out what people are doing.”

“Sure. I’m gonna have to dash in a minute, but yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Phichit – before we go, I was wondering, as someone who knows Yuuri well…I’ve said that already, haven’t I?”

“Hey, whatever other secrets you want, go ask the main man. What kind of friend would I be if I went around blabbling?”

“I need your help with this, though.” When Phichit didn’t reply, but simply stood and waited, he carried on, “Are there any places around town you know he likes? That you could recommend? Restaurants, or clubs, or – ”

Phichit’s expression softened, and he paused to think. Then he pointed his index finger in the air, his dark eyes sparkling. “I know just the place. I’m pretty sure he’s never been there, but…well, maybe you could come with me one evening and check it out. A club called Qi. We could go and just hang for a while, if you wanted.” He quickly qualified this with, “Don’t get the idea I’m asking you on a date, though. I just thought you might want to see it first. It’s kind of different.”

“Oh? You think Yuuri would like it?”

“It wouldn’t normally be his scene, but…with you along, it might bring out a new side of him.” He smiled.       

***

Victor watched as Yuuri paused to the right of the door to the lab once they’d gone inside, leaning back against the bare wall and reading notes on his tablet. “So we’re looking today at making sure the equipment here is capable of analyzing the areas we identified from the previous subject,” he said. He’d put on a white coat, and Victor had done the same.

He peered over the top of Yuuri’s tablet. “OK. Remind me of what those were. Me and my trusty toolkit are ready for action.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow and smirked, then continued. “Possible reduced connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and both the insula and the posterior cingulate cortex.” He looked up and paused.

“Go on,” Victor purred with a smile. “You’re making my nucleus accumbens tingle.”

Yuuri snorted a laugh. “What the fuck. I’m being serious here.”

“So am I.”

“We’ve got work to do, Victor.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?” He leaned in closer until their chests were touching, and put a palm against the wall, hemming Yuuri in as he batted his eyelids and gave him a kittenish grin, wondering why in the world he’d never thought to behave like this in a lab until now. Really, it was too much fun. “Let’s make some oxytocin together.”

To Victor’s surprise, Yuuri just tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, amused laughter bubbling up and out of him. Victor didn’t think he’d even seen him do this before. It made him smile. It was sexy, too.

“All right,” Yuuri said, the laughter trailing away as he stood up straight again. He continued to hold his tablet with one hand, while he raised the other and ran a finger back and forth along the inside of Victor’s shirt collar, tugging gently forward. “I think you’re removing my tonic inhibition.”

Victor couldn’t suppress a snicker. He came closer still, until he was centimeters away from those lovely lips, and whispered playfully, “My nigral dopamine neurons are depolarizing.”

Yuuri grinned softly, his lids hooded, and teased his lips against Victor’s with a gentle sigh. “If you were a concentration gradient, I’d go down on you.”

A wave of heat radiated down Victor’s spine and pooled at the bottom. “I’d go down on you even if you weren’t,” he couldn’t help saying, suddenly less interested in their little game. “Will you let me do that sometime?” He listened to Yuuri’s quickened breaths, feeling them fan his cheek.  

“I – ” Yuuri began.

“Honestly, you two planks – time and place,” said Dr. Li as she came through the door, glancing at them with a smirk and a raised eyebrow before crossing the lab to a work station. Victor and Yuuri separated after exchanging sheepish looks tinged with amusement.

“Should I get the liquid nitrogen to cool things off for you this morning, or won’t that be necessary?” Dr. Li said, her eyes on the computer screen in front of her.

“No, you’re correct, Doctor, that was highly inappropriate,” Victor said smoothly as Yuuri scurried over to the apparatus they were planning to work on. “Wouldn’t you say, Dr. Katsuki? As a guest here, I’ll make sure I mind my manners.”

“Yeah, right, Victor,” Dr. Li said with a smile, her eyes still on her screen.

He strode over to Yuuri, whose face was pink; though he was pleased to see there was still the ghost of a smile on his face. “So. This work we need to do.”

“Actually, I _was_ going to ask you something today,” Yuuri said as he took a sonic screwdriver out of a drawer under the work station.

“Oh?”

“Well…you say you like dancing. But it’s hard to do while we’re trying to jog. Well…I mean, I don’t go to clubs often myself, but one of my students knows I like rock and roll, and apparently they’re featuring it tonight at a local club called Nexus. Do…do you want to try it out, for a little while, if you’re not busy?”

Victor thought about Qi, Phichit’s recommendation. That had been a few days ago; he really ought to get back to him and ask when he’d be free to go. In the meantime, however, there was nothing stopping him from going anywhere else with Yuuri. This was the first time he’d suggested dancing together. That was bound to be something special.

“I’m definitely not too busy for that,” Victor replied, stealing a quick kiss against Yuuri’s cheek as Dr. Li said something again about liquid nitrogen.

***

The club, Victor decided, was like being in a wild west saloon that was trying to be its own version of futuristic. The whole interior was decked out in tan-colored wooden paneling that might have been teak, with the floor covered in the same, and scuffed from countless shuffling shoes. Wooden booths lined the walls, where people were having meals or just drinking and talking; and there was a long bar area with round stools and an enormous mirror behind. The futuristic touches consisted of a ceiling that had been layered with giant box-like crystalline lights that were unusually bright for a dance club, diffusing white and yellow, blue and orange. There were similar rectangular lights lining the tops of the walls. A disco floor wouldn’t have been out of place here, Victor thought, which would have been fun. It was a popular venue tonight, but not overly crowded; and Yuuri had been right about the rock and roll. The music ran the whole gamut from Chuck Berry to Jimi Hendrix, Bon Jovi to Beauty and the Bastards. Shark Soup was playing just now, at a volume that allowed for conversation if you spoke moderately louder than usual, the electric violin scissoring out a deep tune mingled with the bass notes from a cello and some well-pounded drums – all of it obviously played by human hands rather than computer-generated; it had that raw, intuitive feel to it.

Yuuri danced opposite him – close, seemingly comfortable and carefree; and Victor wondered, not for the first time, where he’d learned to dance like this, since he’d said he didn’t care much for clubbing. Sometimes he found Victor’s waist or shoulders and guided him into impromptu moves, and Victor happily allowed himself to be led, unable to decide whether _fun_ or _sexy_ was a better word to describe the experience, and then deciding he didn’t care. Was there really a time when he’d longed just for the touch of those hands? He never wanted them to let him go.

He couldn’t help but muse, though, as they moved to the music, about whether Yuuri had any dress sense other than “work” and “casual.” The former meant gray or black pants and a white button-down shirt with Oxfords, the latter a pair of jeans and a plain dark T-shirt with tennis shoes. Not that it didn’t suit him. He fit in well tonight, in fact, since just about everyone else was wearing jeans and a T-shirt too. Victor, with his clinging black pants and long-sleeved black button-down shirt with a red-and-gold dragon embroidered over a large breast pocket, was the one who stood out, even though a smug little voice inside him said that these people ought to take a hint from him, since this was what was in fashion.

When the song was over, Victor smiled and tilted his head toward the bar, and Yuuri nodded. Victor took his hand and they went over to stand against the wooden counter, a distance away from the stools, their mirror images reflected from behind rows of rainbow-colored bottles. Yuuri ordered the regrettable weak beer that was so popular in this country, while Victor asked for a blackberry vodka.

“I don’t usually have this stuff,” Yuuri said, taking a mouthful of his beer and swirling it around in his mouth as if he’d forgotten the taste. “Seems to go with the setting, though. What do you think? Is this your kind of thing?”

_Not usually; but with you? Yes._ “I’m just glad to be dancing with you. I’ve been wanting to. How did you get so good at it? It’s like it’s natural for you.”

Yuuri looked down with a small smile. “You’re good yourself. How did you learn?”

“I took ballet lessons for several years when I was younger.” Victor shrugged. “I could maybe even have pursued it as a career. But well, I was busy with…family things, and decided to be a neuroscientist instead. Not much difference, is there?” He chuckled, then swallowed half his vodka, savoring the tang of the blackberry. “Now,” he added, turning to look at Yuuri, “you didn’t answer my question – how did _you_ learn?”  

Yuuri was still looking down into his beer. He gulped some more. “Oh, I took some lessons,” he said casually, his words almost lost to the music in the background. “I have a holographic program in my apartment. You know the kind of thing.”

Finishing his vodka, Victor decided this might finally be a good time to mention the elephant they both had known was in the room all this time – a big pink Indian one, with a howdah and bells and everything. On second thought, maybe one more vodka first…no. He was going to do this. Hadn’t he told himself he was going to _communicate_?

“You know,” he said in what he hoped was a sultry tone, taking Yuuri’s hand and stroking the back of it with his thumb, “being here with you, dancing together like this…it reminds me of the banquet.”

Yuuri flicked a glance at what Victor was doing with his hand, and huffed a laugh. “What banquet?”

The grin that had been spreading across Victor’s face halted, then went into retreat. “What do you mean, what banquet?” he echoed with a little huff of his own. “ _The_ banquet. After the presentations in Stanford.” His brow wrinkled at the continuing look of confusion on Yuuri’s face, his stomach dropping to the floor. “Where we met for the first time,” he added, as if this was as plain as day.

“I…what?” Yuuri said quietly. And it was clear that he really was genuinely confused. Well that made two of them now. “I didn’t meet you there. At all. I mean, I saw you when I came into the hall, you got up to leave a few minutes later, and – ”

“But the banquet afterwards,” Victor pressed. “You – you don’t remember?”

Yuuri gave an apologetic quirk of his lips that might have been meant as a smile. “I, um, remember getting really upset, and then being made to go to that niff thing. Dr. Bayar said it was a condition of the university sending us. So I started drinking the champagne.”

“I know.”

“You were really there?”

Victor barked out a laugh, then flopped his head into his hands. “Oh my god, Yuuri. Yes, I was,” came his muffled voice.

Yuuri gasped and fluttered a hand over his mouth. “W-What happened? Oh shit, Victor, what did I do?” His voice was trembling. “No one told me! I thought if it was bad, they would’ve said! Oh Christ – ”

Even though he could tell how anxious Yuuri was getting, Victor _had_ to take a moment just to let the absurdity of it all wash over him. If the sky had suddenly shattered and rained down in pieces to reveal he’d been living all this time in some kind of self-contained bubble, he wouldn’t have felt more disoriented. This meant…and he’d been…and thought…and…oh, holy shit.

_“Victor,”_ Yuuri hissed; and when Victor finally took his head out of his hands, he discovered he was looking at him with desperate urgency.

There were tears pricking at Victor’s eyes, but his smile was genuine as he said, “Yuuri, that was the best night of my life. You were amazing.”

Yuuri’s brow smoothed and his eyes went wide. “What?”

“You were the life of the party.”

He shook his head. “You can’t be serious,” he whispered. Victor could barely hear him over the music.

“Look, why don’t we go someplace quieter? A café, maybe?”

“My apartment.”

“OK, sure.” He gave Yuuri a reassuring grin, watching him guzzle the rest of his beer with abandon. Then he turned to leave the bar and threaded his way through the dancers, Yuuri following.

They had almost reached the door when Yuuri was suddenly accosted by a blond-haired man with a broom of a mustache who appeared to be about Victor’s age. He looked like he was dressed for the office rather than a dance club, and had clearly had a bit to drink. Well, more than a bit. He swayed slightly where he stood as he goggled at Yuuri and clapped a hand to his arm. Yuuri appeared to be resisting the urge to flinch.

“Dontcha recognize me, Yuuri? Mike Stevens. Guess it’s been a while.”

“Uh…”

Victor stood and watched uncertainly. Mike went on, “We were at MIT together! But, _shazam._ ” He stepped back and gave Yuuri an exaggerated stare, still holding his arm. “Look at _you_! What a change. When did _this_ happen?”

Yuuri had gone scarlet. He was clearly uncomfortable. “We were just on our way out,” Victor said.

“This your boyfriend?” Mike said, eyeing Victor now. “You da man, Yuuri. Hey, fella, you gotta see.” He dug a tablet out of his pocket and switched it on, a menu flickering across the screen.

“Mike, we really need to leave,” Yuuri said. “Don’t do that. I don’t want – ”

“Aha! I knew they were here somewhere, though it’s…what, five years ago? Shit, jack, time flies. Look,” he said to Victor, bringing the tablet around so that Victor could see.

There was a pitiful expression of horror on Yuuri’s face, but Victor felt as if he were caught up in the moments after a car crash, the urge to rubberneck too great to resist. His stomach fluttered in trepidation as he gazed at the screen.

It was a photo of several young scientists in white coats, working in a lab on what appeared to be apparatus for reading neurological signals. The sort of thing that might have appeared in a campus Cloud mag. Most of the students had turned to smile pleasantly at the camera, but one of them had tried to duck out of the way – unsuccessfully, as it happened; and his face was in full view next to a machine on the work surface. Yuuri. A rather chubby Yuuri, too. Well, clinically obese, if you were being particular. Nothing startling, but it was certainly noticeable. Victor’s expression darkened, and he remained silent.

“I never would’ve believed you could look so good,” Mike said to Yuuri as he put the tablet away.

“You’re a niff terp, you know that, Mike?” Yuuri said in a wavering voice. “And you’re lanced. How many drinks have you had? Jesus, just spatch off already.”

“What, you can’t take a compliment?”

Victor placed a hand gently on Yuuri’s back and steered him toward the door. “Come on, let’s go,” he said as they crossed to it and exited onto the sidewalk. White light streamed from a lamp nearby.   

Yuuri stopped and stood in front of him, arms loose at his sides, his face a picture of misery. “I didn’t want you to know,” he said softly, his eyes pleading, apologetic.

“Why?” Victor asked with a shake of his head.

“I never wanted you to see me like that, or…or be afraid I might get like that again.” He took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest, looking around at everything, it seemed, apart from Victor. “Oh god,” he sighed, seemingly to himself. Then after a pause, “I saw a counselor at the university about four years ago who helped me stop comfort eating. Mostly. I mean, it’s nothing like it used to be, and I hardly ever – ”

“Yuuri,” Victor said, hesitating to put a hand on his arm because that was what Mike had just done, then doing it anyway, hoping it was more welcome, “I’ve called us a taxi. You don’t have to stand here and justify anything to me. This doesn’t change anything, OK? That _ublyudok_ in there…well I don’t know what was in his mind, but that was a callous thing to do to anybody, even if he meant well.”

“I just…it’s so embarrassing,” Yuuri continued. “I was like that most of my life.” He looked at Victor with an earnest expression that tugged at his heart. “Why else do you think I’m so…inexperienced? It’s not as if I didn’t try. I…I got tired of being laughed at, pitied, whatever, and gave up. I just want to forget about it all,” he ended emphatically.

“Come here.” Yuuri’s posture was so defensive, Victor wasn’t sure if he’d be willing to comply; but slowly he relaxed his shoulders and dropped his arms back to his sides, then allowed Victor to wrap him in a hug, his arms circling around Victor’s waist. “You’ve had a hard night,” he said, and Yuuri let out something between a little laugh and a sob on his shoulder. “Here comes the taxi now. Let’s get you home.”

There was just one black vinyl bench-like seat inside the small white vehicle. When he’d called for it over his chip, Victor had given it Yuuri’s address and paid for it at the same time, so all they had to do was get inside and sit out the ride. Yuuri slid back slightly, snuggled against him, and rested his cheek on his shoulder. Victor took him in his arms again and kissed the top of his head.

“Victor, I want to know what happened at the banquet.” Victor could feel the heat of his breath through his shirt. He just looked down at him.

“Now? Are you sure?”

A big brown eye gazed back up. “You said…it wasn’t so bad?”

“Well, no. Not at all. OK.” He thought about where to start; how to phrase it. “You know how they sometimes put on a disco at these get-togethers? I’ve been to plenty where everyone was too embarrassed to actually dance, so the music would just play.”

“Yeah, I’ve been to those.” Then he sat up straighter “Wait a minute…”

“ _You_ were the one who got everyone moving this time,” Victor said, punctuating it with a fond smile as he remembered. “You started dancing on the space they’d cleared for it, and you were really good. People were talking about how good you were, in fact, even though you were just there by yourself. Then a few others joined you. It looked like you were all having a great time.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said, digesting this. “And what were you doing? I don’t even remember seeing you.”

“I came in after you’d…um, had quite a quantity of champagne already, I think. But I wouldn’t have known it at the time; you were so…lively.” _It never occurred to me that you were so drunk you’d blank it all out either. And I call myself a neuroscientist._ Yuuri groaned. Victor wondered whether he ought to tell him the next bit, then decided it was probably best for him to know, in case anyone ever mentioned it. “You even asked that Oxford professor, Dr. Bacewicz, to dance with you – with a rather fiery look in your eyes, it has to be said. And she accepted. I think she’d been drinking too, actually.”

Yuuri looked up at him in horror. _“What?”_

“Just for a song or two. She…kind of seemed to like it.” Yuuri buried his face in Victor’s shirt, and Victor chuckled. “It was sweet, I thought. Anyway, she’s hardly likely to cause any problems for you now after that, is she? And then – ”

“There’s an _and then_?” Yuuri mumbled.

The feel of his lips moving against his shirt like that was pleasantly distracting. “Oh yes – the best part.” He paused and glanced at the white and amber lights of the city flashing by outside in the night. Did they have time for this before they got back to Yuuri’s apartment? Well, they could always carry on talking inside, he supposed. He didn’t want to hurry. “I’d been watching you; making the usual conversation with people, but keeping you in my sight. The way you moved…and when I asked someone who you were, I remembered that I was familiar with some of your work. They told me what had happened at the presentation. I felt bad for you, of course; but you seemed to be having such a lot of fun, I thought you’d just brushed it aside.”

“Yeah, sure,” Yuuri muttered.

“Well. When the next song started, you came over to me.” He knew he was grinning like a fool now. Yuuri sat up straight, a look of trepidation on his face. Victor pulled his arms away but rested a reassuring hand on Yuuri’s forearm. “You said something like, ‘Come dance with me, Victor. This is the perfect song.’ ”

His eyes wide, Yuuri paused and then said in a small voice, “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“They were playing all kinds of music. This was an oldie called ‘Doctor, Doctor.’ ”

Victor could pinpoint the exact moment of horrified recognition in Yuuri’s eyes. There was the hand fluttering to his mouth again. “Oh…”

“I was so charmed.” He thought back to it – this beautiful, thoroughly lanced but lucid Japanese scientist sauntering over to him, placing a palm on his chest and looking at him with those eyes…eyes a man could lose himself in. The singer belting out, _Doctor, doctor, gimme the news – I got a bad case of loving you._ How anyone could be so sweet and bold at the same time, he couldn’t fathom, but it had stirred something inside that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Charmed?” Yuuri echoed.

“Oh, absolutely. We danced just with each other from then on. I took some photos with my aircam. Here, let me find them.” He paused to access his chip, then smiled when he saw them, and sent them to Yuuri. Dipping, spinning, swaying their hips. Taking turns leading as the songs changed. Victor knew that the look on his face in the photos made no secret of how hard he’d fallen for him.

Yuuri gasped when he accessed them. “Victor…”

“Aren’t they amazing?”

“I can’t believe I did that. And…and I can’t believe I _forgot_ it,” he said with a pained expression. “I forgot how we first met. I mean – I’m embarrassed as hell. B-But that looks...we look so happy.”

Victor gave him a gentle smile and stroked a finger down his cheek. “We’ll make lots more good memories. We already have. And we’ve got photos, at least. I’ll always treasure them.” As Yuuri returned his smile, he added, “Don’t you want to know what else happened?”

“Oh god. Can I take any more?”

“I think you’d be interested to find out. When the last song we were dancing to ended, you…um, asked me to be your research partner.” _You threw yourself into my arms and started grinding against me, too, which was a little surprising but not completely unwelcome, even though we were in full view of the public. I’m not sure you’d be too happy to know about that, though._

Yuuri’s jaw dropped. Victor didn’t think his eyes could go any wider. After a pause, during which Yuuri was obviously trying and failing to find words, Victor continued. He noticed they were in Eagle Hill now, and would be at Yuuri’s apartment shortly.

“Well, I think the alcohol was finally getting the better of you by that point, and you said you needed the men’s room, so I picked up your leather bag for you and escorted you there. Your colleague – Dr. Bayar, was it? – saw me waiting outside and said he’d take you back to your room. You know, my colleagues from Columbia thought you were…what’s the term? Well flink? They kept referring to you as ‘Doctor Dance’ for days afterward.” He chuckled.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Yuuri blurted. “I can’t believe – ”

“Was Dr. Bayar the only colleague of yours there?” Yuuri nodded. “He said he’d left the banquet to talk to some people about research funding and had only just gotten back. I was sorry we hadn’t had the chance to say a proper goodbye, but…” The taxi was drawing up to Yuuri’s apartment house. “…well, not knowing how else to contact you, and you having been too far gone for me to ask, I did the old-fashioned thing of finding a notepad and pencil, wrote my number on it, tore it off the pad and gave it to you. I saw you put it in a small pocket on the side of your bag.”

Yuuri shook his head, his eyes saucers still. “I had no idea…I never found it. Oh my god.”

The taxi stopped and he sprang out. “Come on,” he said to Victor, who followed him inside and up to his apartment. Once there, Yuuri dashed to his bag on the floor near the kitchen, picked it up, and slung it on the counter, rummaging around the outside of it. “The one time I decide not to take it with me,” he muttered. “Maybe it’s here…I wouldn’t know…” He reached his fingers inside a small zipped pouch, then extracted a little piece of folded white paper. Carefully he opened it and peered at the writing. “ _Yuuri, call me. Let’s go dancing again. V. N._ Followed by your number.” He stared at Victor incredulously.

Victor just smiled, suddenly finding the whole thing rather funny. _He never even knew he had it, and all this time I thought…_

“T-This is why…why you came to – to Cambridge? To my office?”

“Yes. Well, when I didn’t hear back from you, I wasn’t sure what to make of it – but then you recorded that video.”

“The video,” Yuuri echoed.

“The one where you talked about adapting my schematic for the TMS harmonizer?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I assumed it was…you know, your way of telling me you were still interested.” He continued to smile, hoping to put Yuuri at his ease. It didn’t seem to be working very well.

“But…but I didn’t put it on the Cloud at all. I made the brainwave entrainment device because…well…” He put the piece of paper with Victor’s details down on the counter distractedly and ran a hand over his face and backwards through his hair, leaving it endearingly tousled. “…I was upset after the presentation at Stanford. Depressed, even, for a while. It was something that inspired me, something to do to lift myself out.”

“Oh.” Victor raised his eyebrows.

“I’m so sorry, Victor – ”

“But that’s fantastic, Yuuri! I’m glad I was able to help you in that way, without even knowing it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“OK. So…so…” Victor could practically see the thoughts flashing in his eyes. “…that’s why you…um, acted the way you did when you came to see me?”

Victor chuckled. “If you mean, is that why I acted like a shameless flirt from the moment I walked in? Then yes. I was a prize idiot.”

“And all that time, I thought…”

“What?” Victor prompted.

“Well, that you wouldn’t want me.”

“Oh Yuuri.” Victor closed the distance between them, put his hands on Yuuri’s waist, and dipped his head for a kiss, long and tender. When he pulled back, Yuuri’s cheeks were dusted with pink. “I can assure you that the opposite was very much the case. I tried to secure a position at MIT for a year, but Harvard was as close as I could get. A few people there owed me a favor. But I really was looking forward to being your research partner, just like you’d asked. I’m so glad I came, for lots of reasons.”

“Despite me making a clinker of myself in front of all those scientists at Stanford? You’re pretty forgiving.”

“Yuuri, do you really not know how sexy you are? You were irresistible.”

Yuuri huffed and went over to a cupboard, where he took out a couple of sky-blue china mugs. “Coffee? I’ve got a cafetiere now.”

“Sure.” Victor joined him and watched him use Phichit’s invention to boil water instantly in a metal flask; then he poured it into a mug with a teabag and the cafetiere. “Yuuri…I know you said you just wanted to forget; but aren’t you proud of losing the weight and keeping it off like that? Many people try and don’t succeed.”

“That was me, too, for years and years. It just hurt a lot. Feels better to try to leave it behind me. I always thought maybe I _was_ kind of sexy underneath, but eventually I just figured it was something I might never be able to explore.”

That would have been a tragedy, Victor thought – but writing his whole life off like that at age, what, twenty? He could hardly imagine what that must have felt like. Yuuri’s words from earlier at the club came back to him then: _I got tired of being laughed at, pitied._ And suddenly a whole lot more about him made sense. He wished – oh he really wished he’d known about this, as well as Yuuri’s wiped memory from the banquet, before now.

“I must’ve come across as being very blunt and tactless. Selfish, even. Yuuri, I’m sorry.”  

“Don’t be,” Yuuri said as he pulled the teabag out of his mug, placed it on the corner of the sink, and looked at him levelly. “Don’t ever be sorry for being yourself, Victor. That’s all I’d ever want. I don’t regret anything that happened. Which, um, which is really something, I think, after the mess I made of it all.”

“That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” He felt a lovely wave of warmth radiate through him. “And you didn’t make a mess of it. I don’t regret anything, either. Though, ah…” He glanced at the fridge. “…I think I have an apology to make about the food I’ve brought into the office. Taking you to restaurants. I didn’t – ”

“It’s OK,” Yuuri said softly with a smile, and the radiating warmth intensified. “Once you knew I was on the paleo diet, I was really touched by how you tried to make sure we had stuff I was happy to eat. And I _do_ have treats once in a while, like you’ve seen. I know how to say no when I need to.”

Victor gave him an infatuated grin as he watched him pour the coffee into the mug. “You’re a pretty amazing person, you know that? I said that before, didn’t I? Well, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time. I’ll keep saying it again and again, too.”

Yuuri laughed, adding cream and sugar the way he knew Victor liked it. Then he went to the sofa, Victor following, and they both sat down with their drinks.

“I didn’t give you an answer when you asked about the dancing,” Yuuri said between sips. “Well, not really. Here in the living area is where I project the holograms. But a long time before that…” He gave a little huff and looked down.

“You don’t have to tell me – ”

“No, I do,” he said, meeting Victor’s eyes again. “When I was younger, and I’d tried different diets – which all would’ve worked, probably, if I hadn’t kept raiding the cookie jar or the cake tin, but anyway…my family eventually pushed me into going to special dance classes for overweight people as part of ‘size acceptance.’ I didn’t want to go, and frankly I was mortified at first; but you know, after a while it wasn’t so bad. It got to be fun, even. I wasn’t self-conscious for once, because we were all in the same boat, so to speak. That’s when I discovered I could balance well, and thought I could get pretty good at it all, especially if I ever lost enough weight to…well, to try dancing in public. But until I was ready for that…at least holograms don’t care about that kind of thing.”

“Yuuri.” Victor wanted to gather him in his arms, instead of both of them sitting here and facing each other with these drinks; but no matter. “I wish you could see yourself from my point of view. Do you think I could be so shallow that I’d only care about what you looked like? What was it you said to me a few minutes ago – ‘don’t ever be sorry for being yourself’? You worry so much about how people see you, what you do or say, whether it’s right or wrong by whatever standards you think people are judging you by, second- and third-guessing yourself. But all you need to do is let your own personality shine through.” His voice dropped. “It’s so beautiful, Yuuri. _You’re_ beautiful. Every part of you.”

Yuuri just looked at him in surprise, his eyes shining. Then he breathed, “Thank you.”

If they weren’t holding these mugs, Victor was certain they would be embracing by now. But there would be plenty of other opportunities, and he didn’t want to pressure Yuuri into anything, especially after the difficult night he’d had. Being intimate like this in non-physical ways still didn’t come easily to him, but it was the sweetest feeling to look upon the person you desired as your best friend as well. 

“Would you stay a little while?” Yuuri asked, gazing at him over the rim of his mug.

“If you feel up to it? Of course.”

Yuuri laughed. “I’m kind of frazzled after everything, but…it’d be nice. Maybe we could watch something together?”

Victor nodded with a smile. “Did you have anything particular in mind?”

“How about something in Russian? We could sit together here and you could translate for me…if you wanted to. I’ve never watched anything Russian in my life.”

“Ah,” Victor said softly, putting his empty mug down on the coffee table. “Well let’s fix that, then, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlPHmYtqSdA&list=RDDlPHmYtqSdA) by Robert Palmer


	19. Chapter 19

Yuuri was still awake at midnight, an hour and a half after Victor had gone, his mind refusing to rest as it processed the bewildering events of the day. He washed their mugs, showered and went to bed, then lay staring at the ceiling as he often did. The white moonlight spilled through the window, forming a neat rectangle in the midst of deep shadows.

_I cannot believe I seduced Victor when I was lanced. I wouldn’t even have had the courage to talk to him otherwise, I’m sure of that._

_After he’d given me his number, and I didn’t call…and then he turned up at my office, and I kept backing off…he must’ve thought I didn’t want him. That_ I _didn’t want_ him. _Jesus._

_And yet he was never anything other than warm and kind with me. And he’s never treated me like I’m crazy, either, even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe I’m really in contact with any presences. It would probably have scared a lot of other people off._

_Victor, I love you. I wish I knew what the right moment was to tell you. Should I buy a dozen bouquets of roses? Take you out on a swan boat and hire a mariachi band to serenade us?_

He chortled at the image. Victor would probably love it. Somehow, though, he felt something a little more subdued would be preferable.

His thoughts still raced, pushing sleep away. “Friday, turn the air conditioning down,” he said. “Um…to eighteen degrees Celsius.”

“Roger that, Dr. Katsuki.” There was the heavy thump of the machine stirring to life, and then the steady whirr of the fan. It was probably the soothing noise, Yuuri thought, rather than the cooler temperature that usually helped him relax on summer nights. But he was still keyed up.

He and Victor had ended up watching a show about the history of St. Petersburg, projected as a hologram into the middle of the room. Victor had asked him if he wouldn’t prefer a soap opera or drama or some silly comedy or romance, but Yuuri said he didn’t know anything about where Victor was from, and he was interested. Victor had started translating while adding information of his own, sometimes pausing the show while he did so. Yuuri had tried to pay close attention, though nestling against Victor on the sofa had been such an enjoyable distraction that he would have been abashed to admit how much had floated by as meaningless waves of color and sound. He’d been tempted to ask Victor to stay the night, but knew he was still in pieces from all the revelations, though Victor had done an admirable job of helping him put most of them back together. Another time would be better, he’d decided.

His embarrassment at his sexual inexperience didn’t help matters either, though by now it was plain to see Victor didn’t mind. They’d done enough kissing and cuddling that it wasn’t difficult to imagine how they might move on from there, and Yuuri was starting to trust his body’s natural responses more, though the intensity of being with Victor was still daunting. There was also that instinct he’d developed to try to hide his sexuality instead of expressing it, which had worked well enough as a defense in the past, but was not so helpful now.

_Will I ever be able to let myself go with Victor? It still feels kind of frightening to think about. I’m so used to pushing people away._

Maybe it was just a matter of finding the right time, though he realized this was in danger of becoming a handy excuse for putting things off. And did it really need to be frightening? He trailed his fingers up his bare abdomen and over his chest, imagining they were Victor’s fingers, and felt an instant tingle. Gasped as he massaged and tweaked a nipple. Conjured the feel of Victor’s soft, warm lips on his own. Hands caressing his face, his neck, moving downward. He moaned and whispered Victor’s name into the stillness of the night as his own hands went to where he was now aching to be touched. There was no lingering guilt about this; he wanted it, and knew Victor wanted it too.

He pulled his briefs off and stroked himself slowly at first, wondering what Victor liked; what he himself would like. How it would feel. Surely different from when he did this on his own. Could he do it to Victor? He imagined them both bringing each other off at the same time, in some spontaneous way, clothes hastily shoved aside. Would he have the courage? His hand worked faster as he thought about more intimate couplings. He hardly dared to explore in his mind what it would be like to take Victor, though he’d love to do it one day. Or having Victor inside of him, while deep kisses turned into gasps, and they gazed into each other’s fevered eyes. His fingers quickened until they were pumping furiously over the head of his cock while he imagined it, the pleasure almost unbearable as he begged Victor for more.

“Oh god _yes_ ,” he cried, and arched his back as his orgasm erupted through him. Afterward he lay still, aware again of the hum of the air conditioner and a draft across his skin, his heart rate gradually slowing back to normal. He used his briefs to clean off the mess, then stretched languorously, feeling the last vestiges of tension in his muscles melt away.

_Wow._ He’d been pretending to himself, some of the time anyway, that Victor had been watching him; could imagine his bright blue eyes with pupils dilated, parted lips, pink cheeks. He’d tell Yuuri he was beautiful, and he might just be tempted to believe that for the first time in his life. 

Breaths calming and sweat drying in the cool room, he drifted into a dreamless sleep.  

***

She was short, slight of build, 66 years of age, with a slow but deliberate walk, easy yet at the same time purposeful, as if everything she did was the expression of an intention, the thought to the limb to the movement. Under one arm was a large slim calfskin drum, brown and lined with years, as was its owner. Onawa, which meant “wide awake;” a Narragansett. Unlike most of the other shamans who had been to the lab, there was no ornamentation on her; she wore bluejeans, brown loafers, a long-sleeved white blouse with a red-and-white bandanna loose around her neck, and large gold hoop earrings. Her waist-length brown hair, streaked with white, hung thick and loose. More like a farmer’s wife than a traveler to spiritual realms, Yuuri thought; but then when he looked more closely, there was a glimpse to be had of something like a star cloaked in dust; flashes of surprisingly bright white light underneath an unprepossessing exterior.

“Would you like me to take your bag for you?” he asked after he’d shown her to a large plush chair, the most comfortable-looking one he’d been able to find in the building.

She shook her head. “This stays with me. It’s my medicine bag.” She undid a string at the top of the leather pouch and extracted a drumstick made from a skinned tree branch, with some kind of soft white organic material cushioning the end; it looked like a pussy willow. Then she put the bag on the floor next to her and sat with her drum on her lap, looking at Yuuri expectantly. “You going to do your high-tech stuff with me here or what? I’ve got important things to do.” But she punctuated it with a good-natured smile.

Yuuri – and sometimes Victor along with him, though not today – had encountered a version of this attitude with every volunteer so far, though there was an air of approachableness with this woman that differed from the blasé or even haughty mien of most of the others. Like she was a just little bit interested…or maybe _amused_ was a better word. But it was something. Yuuri tried to work with it as he went through the standard questions with her for the qualitative analysis. When she became a shaman. What the experience was like. The kinds of things she did. And so on. There were parallels with what he’d experienced himself – there always were; but nothing that suddenly opened any doors, providing him with stunning insight. Not that he expected there to be. But the hope always stayed with him.

He placed a band around her head that was wired to equipment on the counter next to her; like all the other shamans, she did not have a chip, and so this would take the manual readings he needed. Trying to put her at ease – though Victor was better at this kind of thing than he was – he offered her a drink and a cookie or some crackers, which she refused; and then he explained that he’d like her to go into a trance state while he stood in the control room and monitored the readouts from the tech. She simply nodded, and then allowed her chin to droop low, beginning a firm rhythmic pounding on the drum like a heartbeat.

In the control room, Yuuri folded his arms across his chest and stared at the flickering lights and numbers on the screens in front of him, feeling oddly incongruous in his white lab coat and work clothes; he ought to be on some grassy plain, he thought, with hills or mountains in the background, maybe a river or lake nearby, the sun shining down, and the breeze in his hair, while he was doing this. Then Onawa started to hum, as if in invitation to a dance or journey. That would have been the appropriate thing, rather than standing here in a lab and watching machines while he studied this unique individual like a bug under glass. But what else was there to be done? He was a neuroscientist hoping to understand more about her. This was the correct procedure to follow. Though he had to admit it still seemed a poor one at that.

When it was over, Yuuri returned to the lab and asked Onawa if she was all right while he removed the band on her head. “You’re our last volunteer for this part of the study,” he told her as she stood up. “Thanks very much for coming. This information will hopefully give us some good insights into what’s going on in your brain while you’re in a trance state. If you’d like to be notified of the results – ”

She reached a delicate hand out and placed it over his heart, a placid yet intent expression on her face. Momentarily stunned, Yuuri stared back into deep dark eyes.

_[I thought so.]_

He sucked in a breath. The _understanding_ that was transmitted to him, brief though it was, could almost have been words. He’d never experienced anything like it before.

_[Strange,]_ she sent. _[You’re one of us but you behave like one of them.]_

Yuuri didn’t want to open his mouth to speak, as if the noise would shatter the quiet calm that had descended upon the room. Instead he continued to meet her eyes, and attempted to communicate with equal clarity. But all he could think to send was, _[What?]_

_[Why do you limit yourself like this? This lab, these machines, these narrow parameters by which you define your investigations. It’s like trying to explore the universe from your backyard with a pair of binoculars.]_

Yuuri quirked his mouth and gave a little huff, which sounded bigger than it was in the silence.

_[Cynicism does not become you.]_

_[How did you know about me?]_

_[How do you look at a hand and know it’s a hand? Or a cloud, and know it’s a cloud?]_

Yuuri shook his head. _[The others…shamans…in the lab weren’t like this with me.]_

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and held his gaze again. _[They saw but they didn’t intervene. They didn’t see much point. I, however, did. You have…potential.]_ To Yuuri’s surprise, he received an entire thought that contained words: _[But you will suffer until you fully embrace this part of yourself.]_

Images of doctors and psychiatrists flashed through Yuuri’s mind. His parents arguing in the adjoining room, making no attempt to conceal the fact that it was about their son going crazy. Searching for truth with the clumsy, primitive tools that were all science had to offer; devoting his life to analyzing brainwaves, neurons, synapses, chemicals. Hiding what was inside of him from a world that wouldn’t understand.

_[It’s tragic, how little your culture knows about this. Even my own. But we make progress, step by step. That’s why I agreed to come here today. One day everyone will see – as a hand is a hand and a cloud is a cloud – that everything is conscious, and that consciousness is linked.]_

_[I’m not sure what you mean. How can that happen? People don’t believe me. I wonder sometimes what use this ability is.]_

_[Everyone has it. Not everyone can access it. Sometimes a key just fits in a lock. It can be painful…isolating…even frightening. But it’s also a gift. There’s never white without black, or vice versa, in this life.]_

An image of a yin-yang symbol suddenly appeared in Yuuri’s mind. _[That’s Chinese, not Native American.]_

Now Onawa gave something like an audible huff. _[It’s universal.]_ Then she removed her hand from Yuuri’s chest, but continued to stand and look at him. “It gets tiring talking like that after a while. If you understand.”

He felt the absence of warmth where her palm had been pressed. The absence of the connection, as well, that they’d just shared. “I guess I can,” he said, though truth be told he hadn’t wanted it to end. There was an intimacy about communicating in that way which cut through the layers people tended to wrap around themselves, concealing their essences. It hadn’t even been bad with Crow, he decided. Just…disturbing.

Onawa pulled the strap of her medicine bag over her shoulder. “By the way, you have ancestral spirits who want to help you. You ought to try listening to them.”

Yuuri thought of his parents’ butsudan, the Japanese shrine for ancestors. For them, however, as for many nowadays, it was more about tradition and display of wealth than any real meaning it might once have been imbued with. He simply nodded; and then a thought occurred to him.

“Um, Onawa…have you ever…I mean, has anyone ever sent you – you know, like we were doing just now – an image of a black snake wrapped around an egg? It’s a symbol from ancient Greece. From what I understand, it’s supposed to be about the birth of light and consciousness. But…when people send it to me, they…they’re in distress. I don’t know if that means someone out there is using the symbol for something harmful they’re doing, or – ”

“Hmmm. No, I’ve never seen anything like that. But while you were talking about it, I got an idea of it in my mind, surrounded by dark smoke.” She sighed and picked up her drum. “That ain’t good news. I wish I could tell you more, but my advice is, stay away from it.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Yuuri muttered.

“Oh,” she added, waving her free hand, “one more thing. I meant to say before. It was just on the edge of my mind, like it was trying to hide from me, but my eyes see a long way. Beware the Carrion Eater. He is relentless. You’d do well to listen to your ancestral spirits and let them help you. You’re going to need it.”

“Beware the…” Yuuri repeated under his breath. “What does that mean?”

“It’s what came to me. I’ll have to leave you to think about it. Now…” She placed a light hand on his arm. “…where can a lady go to get some good grub around here?” 

***

Yuuri’s and Victor’s work schedules rode the crest of a wave for a while, demanding most of their time. Years back, when the long summer vacation and breaks between semesters were removed in order to facilitate accelerated degree programs, the idea was that staff would simply put in fewer hours at the university. In actual fact, this was rarely the case, or they took the work home. It had never bothered Yuuri until he’d met Victor; and then, with him disappearing to New York most weekends as well, it could be a frustrating wait before they were both free to go on a date. If they made up for it now and then with a few snatched embraces in the office, he figured it was justified.

Although today they planned to finish earlier than usual, he found that he wished it wasn’t the case, because it meant the work on the first part of their study was almost complete. And neither he nor Victor had seen anything in the data that pointed to a breakthrough in understanding the phenomenon. Victor hadn’t been naïve enough to expect it, though he knew that Yuuri had been hoping. He said he was pleased with the new data they’d amassed, and that Yuuri should be too, because they _had_ made new discoveries, even if they weren’t spectacular enough to grab headlines; after all, such things rarely were.

And then there was still the second part of the study to go. But Yuuri was also conscious of time passing, and they hadn’t decided anything yet about their future – though he knew Victor had a number of options to look into. He was aware himself that there were no vacancies in his department at MIT, and had little faith in his ability to be able to charm anyone enough to persuade them to create one. But for the sake of being able to stay together with Victor? He’d strip and pole-dance in front of them, then crawl across broken glass, if he thought it would make a difference.

_Actually…ouch._

He turned off the brain hologram he’d been examining and leaned back in his chair, cradling his mug of tea while he propped his feet up on his desk. Then he looked over at Victor, who was examining the same brain hologram over his own desk, and thought how nice it would be to do something together, now that they had an opportunity. They hadn’t made any plans, though. The beach, maybe? And then his apartment? He could always whip up something for them to eat on short notice.

Victor, however, pre-empted him. “Yuuri,” he said as his hologram switched off, “do you have any plans for this evening?”

“I was just going to ask you – ”

“I have an idea.”

“Oh?”

Victor stood up and walked over to Yuuri’s desk, looking down at him, with promise in his eyes. “A club. I’ve been waiting for what seemed like a good time to suggest it.”

“Why, is there something special about it?”

Victor leaned over and ran a finger under Yuuri’s chin, then lifted it up, hooding his eyes. “It’s…different. We’d need to do a little preparation first. Nothing too drastic, but…I’d love to see how you look.”

Yuuri stared at him; but as he thought about this, he laughed and broke the spell. “What is it – we dress up in drag? Or is it one of those retro discos where it’s the 1970s or ’80s or something, and I’m going to have to wear bell-bottoms or get a mullet hairdo? Or the 2020s – frilly white shirts and velvet jackets? Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad…” He pictured Victor in the style and decided he had to find a 2020s club, or one that did a 2020s night at least.

“Have you heard of Qi?”

“No.”

“Oh. Good,” Victor said mysteriously. He leaned closer, his lips brushing against Yuuri’s cheek. “I think you’ll like it.” Then he straightened with a smile. “Come with me into town first, though. We need to get you some appropriate clothes.”

“We do?” Yuuri was tingling from Victor’s teasing, but mixed with it was a sharper prickle of anxiety. He doubted Victor was into anything very alternative or outré, but just how well did he really know him? Did he have an as-yet undisclosed fondness for BDSM? Exhibitionism? Orgies? _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he told himself. _Just trust him._

“Please let me do this for you, Yuuri. It’ll be fun.”

Victor was still smiling like he had some delicious secret. _Trust him._ “It’d better be,” he said with comically exaggerated sternness. Deciding to leave his carryall in the office rather than drag it around town and through a club, he gave mental commands for the window to be dimmed to opaque and the lights to switch off as they walked out the door. Victor paused in the hall as it closed behind them, looking at Yuuri in surprise.

“That…wasn’t the ESP, was it?”

A quick laugh burst out of Yuuri at the thought. “I wish. No; I hacked the Friday so that I don’t have to talk to it anymore.” He felt a glow inside at the idea that Victor would even ask such a question.

“Ah. Well – are we ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

They took the T downtown, and Victor led Yuuri to a couple of boutiques he said he’d discovered when he’d explored the area. They were trendy places, on the expensive side, that Yuuri would not normally have set foot in; not because he didn’t like the clothes, but because casual dress had become his comfortable default option a long way back. So long ago, he realized, that he still had the mindset of someone who knew none of the clothes in shops like these would fit him anyway, or if they did, he would look awful in them; would not deserve them. _It’s different now,_ he reminded himself as he allowed Victor, with a twinge of conscience, to buy him things he could hardly imagine draped over himself, or being encased in. He’d glanced at the changing-room mirror when he tried each on in turn, though only to make sure there weren’t paunches or folds where they shouldn’t be. This seemed more like a costume than a set of clothes. Black leather pants – really? But Victor had insisted they’d look great, and he’d gone along with it.

“Will you come to my apartment to get changed?” Victor asked him when they emerged into the muggy evening. Yuuri nodded, feeling a flutter in his belly. This would be his first visit there.

The sky was clear but hazed with the moisture hanging in the air; and as they walked, the usual summertime odors of the city drifted by: eggroll and hot-dog and burger stands, stagnant water in sewer ducts, coffee, rotting garbage. When they descended the stairs to the T platform, a hot breeze fanned through the tunnel, mixed with the tang of metal and stale sweat of commuters gathered in a crowd, returning home for the day. They entered a packed train and found enough room to stand while holding on to vertical silver poles, for which Yuuri was grateful as the vehicle rocked and swayed. It was a quick journey, and soon they were disembarking at the Harvard station, stopping on the way for a take-out from the local Mei Wei, which they carried to Victor’s apartment building nearby. This was a stately red-brick edifice surrounded by shady old trees and alleyways, accessed through wrought-iron gates that clanged and then glided open silently.

“It’s nice here,” Yuuri observed, feeling a dart of nervousness reminiscent of their first meetings. “Secluded. Quiet.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Victor said with a grin.

They went up a flight of white stone stairs with iron railings and through a large, heavy wooden door into a spacious hall. The walls were white plaster, the floor white linoleum lightly speckled with gray; and sunlight shone through windows on either side of the door. Victor’s apartment was apparently one of four on the ground floor.

You would hardly know anyone lived here, Yuuri thought when they stepped inside. But then again, Victor still had his original apartment in New York, and he expected that might reflect a little more of his personality. This was more like a hotel suite, bright and clean, empty and new. Light hardwood floors, walls painted off-white throughout, large windows framed by diaphanous curtains, brown leather chairs and a gray sofa, and a generous quantity of luminous white floor lamps scattered around. There was a kitchenette area similar to Yuuri’s, surrounded by white wood-topped counters, onto which Yuuri placed the bag of food, having already deposited his clothes bag on a tall stool. He kept reminding himself that fast food like this was not conducive to his way of eating, but sometimes the convenience simply took precedence.

“I’ll dish up,” Victor said as Yuuri sat on a stool, continuing to look around. There was a lingering aroma of coffee that was rapidly being overpowered by onions, ginger, garlic and sesame oil. A frying pan with splashes of oil in it sat on the hob, with a couple of empty mugs nearby, nothing out of the ordinary – until he noticed the pictures attached to the fridge, obviously printed out for the purpose. Victor with an arm around the frame of a tall older man who could be no one but his father, so striking was the resemblance, with bright crystal blue eyes and sandy blond hair, only much less of it.

“We’re in my dad’s workshop in that one,” Victor said, following Yuuri’s eyes. “Those others are Anna.” Though again, the hair and eyes gave it away. There was also a selfie of Victor kneeling down next to a big poodle that must have been Makkachin. And…several photos of himself with Victor on the beach. In the MIT office. At Nexus. Victor took his aircam with him wherever he went, but in most places they were as common as flies buzzing around, to the point where it was easy to filter them out and forget about them. As Yuuri peered at the photos, the usual inner cringe he felt at seeing himself in what was inevitably a bad light didn’t occur. They…looked good together. He even looked happy. That was surprising too – though it shouldn’t have been, he told himself, because that was exactly how he’d felt.

He had an old aircam buried in a drawer somewhere. Why hadn’t he thought to get it out? The only photo of Victor he owned was still the one he’d removed from his office wall. Taken years ago, before they’d met. The object of an unattainable fantasy. Or so he’d thought.

“I took those photos of my family in July when I went back,” Victor said as he served Yuuri his eggrolls and hot and sour soup. “It was good to see them, even though I wasn’t there long. Do you like my little collection?”

 “It’s great.”

“Maybe you could come to Russia with me sometime, and meet them in person.”

Yuuri’s heart gave a leap, and his appetite began to fade. “I’d like that,” he said quietly, watching Victor serve himself bamboo chili chicken over rice. They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then he added, “So are you going to give me any kind of clue about this club we’re going to?”

“No. But we can get made up when we’re done eating.”

_Made up?_ Yuuri wrinkled his brow.

Victor paused. “Please don’t think I’m imposing any of this on you,” he said gently. “If there’s anything you don’t want to do, we won’t do it.”

Make-up wasn’t new to Yuuri, though it had been years since he’d worn any, and then it had only been light. “What are you thinking of doing?” he asked in curiosity.

“Something that’ll set off those gorgeous brown eyes of yours. You’ll see. But if you don’t like it, you can take it off. Deal?”

Yuuri smiled down at his soup. “Deal.”

***

Yuuri didn’t want to take it off. He found himself momentarily wishing this could have been a tattoo instead of face paint, though how he would be able to give presentations in front of groups of academics looking like this was a different matter.

It had been strangely intimate to sit on his stool with Victor so close their chests were almost touching. Listening to his even breaths. Victor first asked if it was all right to slick Yuuri’s hair back from his forehead with some gel. Yuuri had never tried it before, but he’d nodded, smelling like an expensive salon by the time Victor was done running a comb through his hair, which had been strangely soothing. Next Victor brought out an elaborate set of paints and several brushes of different sizes which he dipped into a cup of water, then swirled in some pigment he applied to Yuuri’s skin, cool and wet. There were no mirrors here to look at, but Victor was concentrating on his eyes, mainly with gold and black; looking at him in approval most of the time, though there were flashes of uncertainty or frustration as well, gone again quickly.

“I didn’t know you did this kind of thing,” Yuuri said.

Victor was drawing the brush slowly across Yuuri’s brow. “I learned when I was going to ballet classes. It looked like fun, and I found out I was good at it. People ought to do it more often, even men. The Egyptians had the right idea.”

Yuuri thought so, too, when Victor declared he was finished, and they shifted to the vanity in the bathroom, where there was a large mirror behind a long white counter with a sink. He gasped when he saw. The effect was similar to a carnival mask, curves and swirls of deep black lines elegantly framing swaths of gleaming gold. The lines trailed off into small scrolls above and below each eye, gently highlighted in white to give them the illusion of depth. It was like the biggest, most exquisite butterfly had alit on his face, though the effect was more subtle and intricate than brash or grand.

“You can do some too, if you want,” Victor said. “While I’m here doing mine. You can add to the design – like so.” He picked up the smallest brush, dipped it in brown ochre, and created a little line of dots underneath a sweeping black line as Yuuri watched. “I like a little of that color on you – it matches your eyes.”

Yuuri took the brush from him and repeated the action in different places, not daring to do anything too drastic lest he ruin the art Victor had created on his skin. But mainly he just watched Victor in fascination as he painted a similar design on his own face, having pulled his long bangs out of the way with a hair clip.

“This must be what they mean by gilding the lily,” Yuuri laughed.

“Hm?”

“You. You’re…beautiful. How do you improve on perfection?”

Victor huffed a small laugh as he worked. “Perfection, eh? High praise.”

“It’s true. I…oh, you’ll laugh.”

“I’m sure I won’t, unless you mean to be funny.”

“Well…I used to imagine you were a work of art, a sculpture, that…that I could admire, but not touch.”

“Not touch? Why?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to. And…I wasn’t sure I had the courage.” He knew it sounded absurd now.

Victor obviously thought so, too. He put his brush in the cup of water and turned to look at him, shimmering gold framing his eyes. “If I were a sculpture, could I do this?” He leaned forward and captured Yuuri’s lips in a kiss. There were no touches from paint-stained hands, but what he didn’t express through his fingers, Victor said through the slow, soft movements of lips and tongue. Yuuri mirrored his actions, feeling like he was melting down to his bones. Their breaths were coming faster by the time they pulled apart.

“Jesus,” Yuuri whispered. _I must be dreaming. This is too good to be true._

Victor chuckled. Soon he finished the intricate undulating designs around his own eyes, matching Yuuri in color and style though not identically, especially after Yuuri had added more dots and flourishes to himself. 

“Now let’s see how all this looks in the new clothes, what do you think?” Victor said as he washed the brushes and tidied the paints, ready to put away.

“Sure,” Yuuri said distantly, staring at himself again in the mirror, still struggling to believe what he was seeing. Then he followed Victor back to the kitchen, where their bags were waiting.

“I’ll go change,” Victor said, taking up his things. “If you want to yourself, just here? Be back in a minute.”

Yuuri took off his work clothes and pulled on the black leather pants. They were on the tight side, and had a sheen whose curves were defined by the muscles underneath. He’d never worn anything like this before, and couldn’t help but feel again that he was putting on a costume, especially with the hairstyle and face paint. But for all that, maybe it would be a flattering one. The shirt was a trendy black tunic-like Chinese Tang style that he’d thought would look ridiculous on him, but he put it on anyway, buttoning the front up and deciding to leave the top two undone, then rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. He stood uncertainly, wondering if he had the audacity to go outside looking like this, when Victor called and asked if he was ready. When he answered in the affirmative, Victor appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. 

“Oh…” Victor said, taking in the sight of him.

Yuuri felt pink stain his cheeks. Victor was obviously trying to flatter him. But he was struggling to find words of his own as he stared in amazement. Victor was also wearing a Tang shirt, this one a splash of bright crimson with a raised collar, cuffs buttoned neatly around his wrists. Like Yuuri’s shirt, there was a gold dragon embroidered down the front, the threads glittering. He wore figure-fitting black slacks. The clip had been removed from his bangs, which now flopped back over his eye, concealing some of the gold underneath.

Victor crossed the room, that odd expression still on his face. Yuuri just watched in fascination, as if he were some fanciful being who had stepped out of the pages of a fairy-tale book. When he stopped in front of Yuuri, his eyes were wide.

“Y-You look…incredible,” he breathed.

Yuuri stood quietly for a moment. “So do you,” he finally said, placing a hand low on Victor’s cheek, taking care not to smudge his make-up.

“I think if I kissed you now, I’d never want to stop.” Victor gave a throaty laugh.

Yuuri couldn’t resist a tease. He batted his lashes and tilted his head up, his lips hovering over Victor’s. “That sounds nice,” he said in a soft purr.

Victor hissed out a breath. “You minx. We’d never make it to the club. Do you want to know what you look like? Come see.” He took Yuuri’s hand and led him through to the bathroom, where they stood in front of the mirror together.

Yuuri instinctively clapped a hand over his mouth, then slowly lowered it as he processed what the glass showed him.

_Is this_ me _?_

If Victor had stepped out of a fairy tale, then Yuuri had come with him. Side by side, they made an exotic pair. Yuuri trailed his hand down the front of his shirt. “I like it,” he said simply, following his words with a small incredulous laugh.

“I do too. Very much. You’re so sexy, Yuuri.”

Heat flushed Yuuri’s cheeks. The next thing he knew, Victor’s mouth was pressed against his again, and a wave of heat surged through him as they embraced.

“We ought to go to this club,” Yuuri said as he regretfully pulled away. “All that beautiful face paint, and these clothes. It’d be a shame to put it all to waste.”

“Hm. I’d love to argue with you about that, but maybe you have a point.”

“Come on then, Victor,” Yuuri said with a smile. “Take me dancing.”


	20. Chapter 20

They got a taxi to the club as the sun sank under a clear purpling sky. Yuuri couldn’t get the sculpture metaphor out of his head now that he’d spoken it aloud. One of his most shameful thoughts from his teenage years. _Look but don’t touch._ Only, now he was welcome to do so. The only thing stopping him was the otherworldly objet d’art on the seat next to him, beyond beauty, the Chinese red of his shirt an exclamation mark slashing across his field of vision, the hint of playfulness in his features seeming to say, _Caught you looking. What are you going to do now?_

Yuuri wanted to explore. Claim. Plunder. Part of him recoiled at the unfamiliar primal feelings, while another was in the process of deciding they were interesting, even permissible, like dipping a toe in the water and discovering it was fine to jump in. He sidled as close to Victor as he could, holding his gaze while he caressed his face and trailed his fingers down his neck, skipping deferentially over the make-up lest Victor’s artistry be spoiled. Victor sighed and did the same, eyes and skin pale next to the slick of red that was the stiff collar circling his throat.

What he would be tempted to do if they were still at the apartment, Yuuri couldn’t have said. He was enjoying the electricity of the moment, the teasing and wanting, knowing they were almost at the club and would be getting out and dancing soon. But he remained aware of darker waters underneath that belied his anxiety at never having been in such a situation, and his lack of experience. Whether he had any right to go somewhere looking like this. _What the hell was I thinking? This isn’t me._ Well, maybe that had been true in the past, in a sense – not to show to the world, at any rate. He suspected, however, that this _was_ just as natural a part of him as the neuroscientist or the baseball fan or the cook or a dozen other things. A puzzle piece waiting at the side for its turn to fit into place, forming a more complete picture of himself. And that wasn’t something to be afraid of. He just had to convince himself a little more first.

He ran his fingers through the soft almost-white hairs over Victor’s ear and leaned in. “Are you going to tell me any more about this club?” he whispered, his lips ghosting over Victor’s.

“We’ll be there in a minute,” was Victor’s quiet response as he gazed down at him, stroking a finger across his jaw. “You’ll see.”

“Tease,” Yuuri said, biting gently at Victor’s bottom lip.

“I could say the same about you.”

“If I am, it’s because I learned from an expert.” Yuuri considered all those times in the MIT office, in and around Boston, before they’d shared their first kiss – the brushes, touches, affectionate squeezes, just the wrong side of innocent, enough to bewilder him. Gazes held just a little too long. Sitting next to each other on a sofa, when in the past they’d been in separate chairs. _What I said is true – and if I can give him a taste of his own medicine? Oh yes, I will._ He grazed his lips ever so slightly across Victor’s, darting his tongue out to tingle the bottom one again before catching it in a quicker-than-a-blink soft kiss. This was fun – the building tension from holding back almost better than indulging in a full-blown embrace. Almost.

“I’d show you plenty about teasing and what happens when you do,” Victor said in a low voice. “But it looks like we’re at the club.”

The taxi came to a halt outside a row of buildings along the harbor. Yuuri spotted the one that was the club as he got out, already missing the warmth and fullness of Victor in his arms. The façade to the left and right was a solid black marble effect with detailed geometric carved designs that made Yuuri think of something from a mosque or temple. In front of them was a large pair of double glass doors that stood open amid a cascade of shining gold from top to bottom, apart from a black rectangular space above the entryway that said “Qi” in gold calligraphic lettering. A thumping rhythm spilled out onto the sidewalk.

“This was the inspiration for the face paint?” Yuuri said as they walked to the entrance.

Victor nodded. “Though you’ll find most people are wearing make-up too, in whatever styles they like.” He took Yuuri’s hand, and together they strode inside, the white street lights fading behind them as they were enveloped in velvety darkness. Victor must have arranged entry and payment on his chip, as they met with no barriers on their way through the vestibule. There was a coat and bag check here that Yuuri could discern through the dim light spilling softly from hooded niches in the stark black walls. Other men passing through were dressed in Chinese clothes similar to theirs, or romanticized versions of suits from eras long past – frilly white shirts, vests, even suspenders. Some wore fitted jackets as well, despite the warm evening, from purple velvet to red leather. A few had their hair slicked back like Yuuri, while others wore it loose to their shoulders, or in ponytails. There were women here as well, in an equally bizarre array of fashions – flappers, goths, even some in tight-fitting Victorian-style coats and skirts with waists cinched in by corsets, inside or out.

But what really caught the eye, Yuuri thought, was the faces. Some covered with Venetian-style carnival masks. Some painted like his own and Victor’s, or even more elaborately, whole faces made into white palettes covered with stripes, stars, animals, clusters of flowers, rainbows, or tooled designs. It seemed common for the artwork to circle around one or both eyes and trail off down a cheek. A few club-goers wore neon paints that glowed eerily in the dark. Others, men women alike, wore conventional make-up, and some none at all. Yuuri found it difficult to discern any kind of theme for this establishment, unless it was to come looking elegant and artistic in whatever way you chose to define it.

They passed through another set of double doors into a spacious room. It was dim and cool, a faint haze hanging in the air that obscured the oddly stylized white, yellow and red lights descending from the ceiling high above like large bunches of glowing grapes. Yuuri couldn’t decide if the haze was damp, or smoke, or a mixture of the two; there was certainly a hint of incense in the air – frankincense, maybe? Sweet and exotic. To his surprise, as he glanced around at the black walls, he noticed ivory-colored candles burning in a bewildering variety of niches; some in candelabras, some huge ones on their own, or smaller ones in groups, all of them dripping wax down their sides.

Then there was the music itself, loud enough to vibrate into skin and bone without being deafening. Wave music, trancelike but too quick and heavy to lull. Yuuri felt it coursing through him, the rhythm insistent, inviting…enticing. Victor simply stood with him, a half-smile on his face as he watched Yuuri take everything in.

If he had to describe it, Yuuri would have said it was like a gay vampire rave, though less pompous and ostentatious than the images such a thing might evoke. Maybe more reminiscent of an eighteenth-century aristocratic party…though that didn’t encapsulate it either, because of the eclectic mix of clothing and make-up. Not to mention the music and dancing styles, neither of which would have been known at the time. Eventually he gave up trying to make sense of it all and told himself just to go with it.

“This place is incredible,” he leaned forward to say to Victor, loud enough so that he could hear. “How did you find out about it?”

“Phichit brought me here.”

“What?” Yuuri blurted.

“He said he thought you might enjoy it, and wanted to show me. We didn’t put on make-up or anything, just went our separate ways for a while once we were inside. I had a few drinks, danced with some holographic partners, and wondered what your reaction would be if we came here together. Do you like it?”

“I _love_ it.” Yuuri would never have guessed this was Phichit’s kind of place. It wasn’t his own either, truth be told; but there was something about being here with Victor that gave it a whole different feel than it might otherwise have had. Less intimidating, for a start. He still wasn’t used to clubbing with anyone other than Phichit or the few random men he’d met in the past and tried clumsily to get off with. But that pressure was no longer weighing down on him here.

“Do you want to move further in?” Victor asked. “Try some holographic partners, maybe?”

There were platforms raised to different heights all around the vast room, like the basalt columns in Giant’s Causeway, some of them occupied by dancing couples. He watched a few rise slowly into the air once people stepped aboard. And as Victor had said, it looked like you could request a hologram to dance with, if you wanted. They were real-looking enough, but their slight transparency and unnatural brightness marked them for what they were. Many of them were even more ornately dressed and made up than their human partners.

“Why would I want a hologram when I’ve got you?” Yuuri said. “You want to dance with me, I hope?”

“Of course I do. But it’s polite to ask, isn’t it? There’s all kinds of things you can request here with your chip if you want.”

“I want to be with _you_ , Victor. Come on.” Yuuri took his hand and led him to a place on the dark floor where there was space enough for them to dance comfortably. Fortunately, the club wasn’t so packed that this posed any challenge.    

Yuuri was about to start dancing when his chip alerted him to a whole menu of options. Holographic dance partners of different genders and sexual persuasions, all of which you could customize to your taste. Apparently you could even hire a real partner if you paid enough. There was a whole list of programs to choose from that would impose an AI dancer in part of your field of view whose moves you could copy. Even a food and drink menu, so that if you ordered anything it would be waiting for you at the bar or an area of tables and booths that Yuuri saw was accessible through a side door he hadn’t noticed. You could request songs as well, though he liked the selection he had heard so far.

“Told you,” Victor said with a laugh as Yuuri stood still, continuing to access his chip. “Fun, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri said, his attention drifting back. “But while I’m here with you, I just want to dance. My own way. I don’t need any of this fancy stuff.”

“Me either.”

One song after another, Yuuri kept his eyes on Victor, with Victor returning his gaze, as they moved to the music. The rest of the room may just as well not have existed. But the heat of the connection he shared with Victor was unnerving, the stronger it grew. Eventually he began to wonder if he really could handle all this – the clothes, the face paint, the club. The way he and Victor were dancing; the wave songs evoking more flowing, sinuous movements than the rock and roll had at Nexus.

_I’m going to have to sink or swim._ A shiver of uncertainty passed through him.

“Yuuri, are you OK?” Victor asked as Yuuri came to a halt.

“Sure.” He thought for a second. “I just need to…you know.” He tilted his head toward the direction of the men’s room.

“Why don’t I get us some drinks while you’re gone?”

“Uh, yeah, OK. Get me whatever you’re having. Won’t be a minute.”

Victor nodded with a little smile, though there was concern in his eyes. Yuuri turned and disappeared down a dark hall. Well, everything was dark here. Dark with soft white light issuing from unexpected places, usually from random hooded niches in the walls, though candles were sprinkled around as well, above head height where they would not be easily dislodged. Maybe a vampire’s life wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. Decades’ worth of films, TV shows and books portrayed them as sexy and strong.

_It’d be just my luck to be the first vampire who got anxiety attacks. Probably at the sight of blood. I’d starve._

There were even candles in the bathroom, which made him laugh. Though actually, more of the sleek black-and-gold décor, along with obvious regular cleaning and care, made it more pleasant here than most such places. There were even baskets of potpourri behind the sinks, which smelled of cinnamon and cloves.

Yuuri washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror, his face paint still a beautiful mask scrolled across his skin, and tried to sink into the ideal mood for returning to Victor at the bar and then going onto the dance floor again. If he could summon what he’d felt in the taxi on the way here, it would be perfect. But a degree of self-consciousness seemed to have seeped into him since then. Maybe a drink would help. He left the bathroom and walked back down the hall and over to the bar, which was black on black with candles lining the walls, shimmering in an immense mirror at the back.

In the midst of an assortment of oddly dressed and colorful people leaning against the counter was Victor, facing the mirror and sipping a magenta drink from a small glass, one sitting nearby untouched, presumably for Yuuri. Standing next to him was a man with grayish eyes, a long nose, high cheekbones, and slicked-back dark hair. Those features, plus the fact that he was even taller than Victor, would have made him striking enough, though the effect was further enhanced by tight black pants topped with a billowing peasant shirt that gapped open, exposing a sleek neck and protruding collarbones.

Yuuri felt his stomach drop. The man was leaning in an affectedly nonchalant fashion on one arm against the bar, gazing at Victor with equal parts admiration and thirst, saying something to him with a quirk of his mouth. If he was wearing any make-up himself, it was only something subtle to darken his lips.

Here was a _real_ vampire, Yuuri thought in a sudden panic. And he was going after Victor. Never having been in this situation before, or anything remotely similar, he froze, his brain refusing to provide any kind of suggestion for what to do.

_Maybe I ought to just go._

The utter ridiculousness and cowardice of the thought steeled his resolve. That was _not_ who he was. That was the anxiety talking.

Well, he’d show it who was boss.

He still didn’t know what to do, but his feet began to move, taking him straight to the two of them at the bar. He could see now that Victor looked uncomfortable, leaning away from the other man, refusing to meet his eyes. That was all the confirmation Yuuri needed. A ball of anger and outrage was growing and tightening in his abdomen as he approached.

_I’m not going anywhere but there, with Victor._

_He’s mine._

Yuuri kept moving until he made sure he’d invaded the man’s personal space. The man had no choice but to turn, however slowly, and look down his nose at him.

“Is this jack bothering you, Victor?” Yuuri said loudly, staring unabashedly up. _He’s so…tall._

The man chuckled contemptuously. “Who the fuck are you?”

Victor was facing them both now, obviously formulating something to say. Yuuri got there first. “I’m his boyfriend. That means he’s with me.”

“This beautiful creature, with a runt like you? Don’t make me laugh.”

“And what audition have you been rejected from today?” Yuuri said, eyeing him up and down. “ _Pirates of the Caribbean Part Twenty-three_? Or _Dracula Does Boston_?”

Victor’s jaw dropped open.

“Fuck off, you little prick,” the man sneered.

“Hands off my boyfriend,” Yuuri countered in what was almost a growl, pushing himself between the man and Victor. A little voice tucked away in a corner of his mind said, _What the hell are you doing?_ but he ignored it. Blood was racing through his veins, his thoughts in a whirl, the hot ball of tension getting tighter and tighter and –

“I said _fuck off_ ,” the man repeated through gritted teeth as he shoved Yuuri so hard that he staggered backward and fell ass first onto the floor, the breath expelling from his lungs in a whoosh. His tailbone shot a spike of pain up his spine.

“Yuuri!” Victor shouted, darting forward.

Before Victor reached him, however, Yuuri felt a sudden blazing heat in his abdomen. It was too big, too strong to contain, and exploded outward at his assailant – or felt like it did, though there was nothing to physically see. The man instantly lurched over, then crumpled to the floor with a groan. Two women near him asked him if he was OK and helped him to stand, even as Victor knelt down next to Yuuri and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

_Did I do that?_ Yuuri thought as the man shot him a look of stunned confusion before allowing himself to be led away, one of the women asking him if he was sick and needed a doctor. _I guess we won’t be seeing him again, anyway._

_Jesus Christ, what just happened?_

“Can you get up?” Victor asked. His face, behind the shining paint, was full of concern.

Yuuri silently allowed him to take his hand and help him up. He rubbed his backside. “I’ll be sore for a while, I think, but I doubt anything’s broken.”

“That _mudak_ got what was coming to him…whatever it was. You didn’t lay a hand on him, did you?”

Yuuri shook his head. He didn’t understand it himself. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Was it…the ESP? Surely not. He’d persevered many times in the past with his attempts to use it to affect the physical word, without success. But what else could it have been? The vestiges of that strange energy were still crackling through him, like a static charge. If he’d been standing in a lightless room, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see blue sparks at his fingertips. He wondered if it was something he could replicate, filing the idea away for future reference.

“ _Dracula Does Boston_ ,” Victor chuckled. “I was trying to get rid of him myself but wasn’t making much headway.” He added gushingly, “You were amazing, Yuuri.”

At Victor’s words, Yuuri felt a swell of pride, like a tiger that had successfully defended its territory.

Or its mate.

_Hands off my boyfriend. He’s mine._

“There’s a drink for you here,” Victor said with a small smile. “Though if you’d rather we left – ”

“No,” Yuuri said quickly. “No, I’m good.” He turned to the bar and picked up the brightly colored drink, polishing it off in a gulp. It was strong and fruity and slightly sweet. “Let’s dance.” He held out a hand to Victor.

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m not going to let a gonk like that ruin my night. Besides…” He gave Victor an openly heated look, discovering in a thrilling rush that there was no longer any self-consciousness lurking underneath. Not tonight. “…I _want_ to.”

***

_Gorgeous. You are gorgeous._

Victor watched the man in front of him, the gold dragon on his black shirt glimmering in the soft light from the ceiling, his matching face paint an exquisite counterpoint, and wondered how this could be the same demure scientist he’d been with in the MIT office just hours before. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, and didn’t want to, as they swayed to the wave music. It somehow gave Victor the mental image of drifting on a flying carpet over perfumed pearlescent clouds.

He’d been sure that buying these clothes for Yuuri had been an inspired last-minute idea, and he wasn’t wrong. The Tang shirt clung to his arms and hugged his waist. And those leather pants…well. Victor knew that if he could persuade Yuuri to actually wear them, they would distract him all night; and he wasn’t wrong about that, either. Every time he looked at the legs they encased, he wanted to run his hands up them, and up and up. It was the sweetest torture. The make-up and outfit together gave Yuuri an air of dark, mysterious sensuality. That had been Victor’s aim in the first place, though playfully so, just to see what happened. He hadn’t been sure if it would be a genuine fit, or if he were trying to tease something out of Yuuri that simply wasn’t there. Every time he’d fretted about this, however, he thought back to the banquet and remembered that it _was_ there because he’d _seen_ it.

He’d trusted Phichit’s belief that Yuuri would like it here, and he was glad he had, even if it was populated by some strutting peacocks. Greg had been one of the worst he’d ever encountered, with his aristocratic nose and man-about-the-world air. Wanting to buy Victor a drink even though there was one waiting for Yuuri to claim from the counter. _Beautiful_ this and _exquisite_ that. Victor had heard it all for so long, from so many people, that he could happily let it all fall away unheeded.

“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” he’d said simply, which would have warned any ordinary person off.

“Then let me buy you a drink while you’re waiting,” Greg had insisted smoothly. “Anything you want. Someone like you deserves to be spoiled. I bet whoever your boyfriend is doesn’t do enough of it. The things I could show you…”

If he’d still been sixteen, Victor might have been entranced by him. Might. Now, at age twenty-eight, his thoughts ran along the lines of: _I really don’t want you to show me anything. And I don’t want to find out what your idea of spoiling someone is, either, because I’m sure it’s not the same as mine. You’re not fit to kiss a toe on Yuuri’s foot._

Victor had tried to fob him off in the usual ways he exercised with people who annoyed him at conferences or other get-togethers. But he was too polite, that was the problem. Concerned about his image, sponsorships, collaborations with colleagues and so on, he was not used to directly insulting people and telling them in no uncertain terms what was on his mind.

He hadn’t thought it was the sort of thing Yuuri did, either.

How delightfully wrong he’d been.

He’d intended to intervene when Yuuri had rejoined him – to _say_ something at least; but it had all happened so quickly. Then Greg doubling over like that; he must have pulled a muscle shoving Yuuri the way he had, and it served him right.

And it was probably petty of him, but he thought that Yuuri’s words – _Hands off my boyfriend_ – and the _look_ that went along with them, were sexy as hell.

The change in him had remained as they’d returned here to the dance floor…There was a compelling fire in the depths of those brown eyes. A new song began then, with a thick pulsing beat underscored by heavy drums and bass. An alto voice was singing, or chanting, in an Arabic style, the notes stretching and weaving into the thrum. The pounding vibrations Victor felt coursing through his body as the loud music played were like sex, the vocals caressing with silk sheets. He allowed it to guide his body, still holding Yuuri’s gaze, silently challenging him to join in.

And Yuuri was clearly willing. He was fluid, graceful…provocative. How did he move his hips like that? They laced fingers together and dipped and gently spun, then released, again and again. So close…Yuuri’s head was tilted up as if he were coming in for a kiss, but his lips stayed teasingly out of reach, his eyes hooded. If they were tangling together in bed, Victor thought, it would hardly be different from this. With the idea came a sudden lancing ache of desire.

What to do about it was the problem. He was always careful not to be too aggressive; to push Yuuri into doing more than he was comfortable with, too soon. What there was between them was too important, too precious, to be ruined because he couldn’t keep his own impulses in check. They were in no hurry, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t know how to take care of his body’s needs later. When he noticed the hour getting late – they had to be at MIT in the morning again, after all, to start setting up the second part of their study – he therefore decided to do the responsible thing and ask Yuuri if he was ready to leave. He nodded, took Victor’s hand, and led them out to the sidewalk, where they waited for a taxi in the cool white beam of a street light.

“So what do you think – do you want to come back here with me sometime?” Victor asked. _We’ll forget about idiots like Greg, shall we?_

Yuuri gave him a warm smile and stroked his cheek with the backs of his fingers, sending a frisson down Victor’s spine. “I’d like that,” he said softly.

Victor was staring into his eyes, at an unusual loss for what to say, when their taxi pulled up to the curb; they’d agreed earlier that it would drop Victor off and then take Yuuri home. They slid onto the seat and were soon moving down the street. He turned to Yuuri, trying to decide whether to choose a conversational topic about the music they’d heard, the décor, other club-goers’ clothes and make-up, and so on; but the words died in his throat as Yuuri slid his arms around his neck, closed his eyes, and claimed his lips in a firm, insistent kiss. All thoughts of the club slipped away from Victor’s mind, leaving nothing but Yuuri and the heat they shared. It seared through him as Yuuri kissed him with a passion that went beyond anything Victor had received from him before, leaving him gasping against his lips. He felt himself tumbling and falling in the most delicious way as Yuuri plundered his mouth and his hands roamed. Victor raked his fingers through Yuuri’s hair and then trailed them down his face, where the make-up was already smudged but holding up remarkably well. He realized his hand was trembling.

When Yuuri reached under his shirt to caress the taut muscles there, Victor shuddered out a breath. The next thing he knew, Yuuri was planting kisses across his jaw. Victor’s cock twitched and he made a little strangled noise, his thoughts wrecked.

“Yuuri, come back to my apartment with me,” he whispered, tilting his head back and closing his eyes in a wave of pleasure as Yuuri did maddening things to his ear. “Please…I want you so much. Please say yes.” He’d just broken every rule he’d made for himself, and was begging on top of it. But he didn’t care.

“Yes,” Yuuri mouthed without hesitation against his neck.

Victor huffed out a breath, reveling in the permission he’d finally been given. He anchored his hands where the leather of Yuuri’s pants was creased at the tops of his thighs, squeezing and pulling, and shifting himself further forward until they were pressed together, both hard and panting. One thrust from Victor, and there was a surprised groan against his neck. It wasn’t unheard of for people to have sex in taxis…it was quite common, in fact; easy to dim the windows…

No. Yuuri deserved better than that – they both did – for their first time together. That wasn’t to say, however, that they had to stop what they were doing. Victor thrust again, and felt a tentative answering grind from Yuuri, who suddenly hooked a smooth black-clad leg around his own.

“Fuck,” Victor gasped, his hips finding a rhythm that Yuuri matched, fingers digging into Victor’s shoulders. If they didn’t stop, he was going to come right here and now like a teenager. 

It was handy, then, that they were pulling up outside the apartment building. They got out of the taxi and made it to the top of the steps to the main door before Yuuri again pulled him into a tight embrace, and they bumped up against the wood together in the midst of more kisses rather than going inside.

“Victor,” Yuuri breathed against his lips.

“We ought to…my room,” Victor managed to get out, before giving up on words.

His chip beeped in his head, informing him that he had a call. He ignored it. When it beeped again, he looked up who it was. Chris – ? Why would _he_ be calling now?

Victor gently pulled himself away from Yuuri enough to be able to tell him he had to answer a call, though he continued to tease at the waist of Yuuri’s pants with one hand, while the other gripped a hip. Yuuri had undone the top half of Victor’s shirt and slipped a hand inside, which he now stilled.

_Of all the times and places._ “Chris?” he said huskily. “This had better be an emergency.”

Yuuri was nuzzling at a wisp of hair just in front of his ear, and he almost forgot who he was talking to.

“Victor…that you? I…can’t…hard to think.” His words were slurred, and Victor realized he was either drunk or high, though he’d never known Chris to take drugs. He rarely drank to the point where he was flat-out drunk either, for that matter.

“I was at a bar…shomebody spiked my drink, I think…must’ve been my date…I can hardly walk, legsh keep wobbling. Dunno where I am – shtreet shomewhere.”

“Why are you calling me when I’m in Boston? Isn’t there anyone closer to where you are?”

Hearing this and no doubt realizing something was wrong, Yuuri drew back and stood up straight. _Shit,_ Victor thought.

“You’re the only one I could think of. Top of my lisht.”

“I can’t instantly get to New York from here, Chris. But I can try getting hold of someone to come and help; just give me a few minutes. If I can’t find anyone, we might have to get you a paramedic. Can you tell me where you are? Look around; see if there are any street signs. Or call a map up on your chip, if you can.”

“Hang on’n I’ll try.”

“Victor,” Yuuri said quietly, “I’d better let you deal with this. It’s late anyway.”

“You don’t need to go. I’ll just – ”

Yuuri placed a warm hand on his arm, so sweet and light after what they’d just been doing. “It’s OK. You help your friend. I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave Victor a soft kiss on the cheek; and then, in a shimmer of black and gold, he turned and descended the stairs.

_Shit,_ Victor thought again as he waited for Chris’s voice.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to confess this is a shameless head canon of mine. I’ve always wanted these two to dance to this song; it simply had to happen. And it does, at Qi, after Yuuri’s seen off the competition. (Though this requires a subwoofer to do it justice!)
> 
> “A new song began then, with a thick pulsing beat underscored by heavy drums and bass. An alto voice was singing, or chanting, in an Arabic style, the notes stretching and weaving into the thrum…”
> 
> [“Zamak”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0kJUWoefZk) by Lumin


	21. Chapter 21

Yuuri was too full of fizzing exuberance the next morning to feel like eating, but knew he’d be burning out before lunch if he skipped breakfast, so he absentmindedly scattered some feta, olives and raw veg on a plate and tucked in while he leaned against the counter and watched the vestiges of the purple and pink sunrise through the French windows.

His backside was smarting a bit from where he’d fallen the night before, but he reckoned his endorphin count was so high that it was being nicely blunted. There was no way of knowing for sure, since the biochem monitor was sitting in his carryall in the office; he suddenly realized he hadn’t even thought to check it in a week.

He’d barely been able to think of anything but the club, and what happened afterward, since he’d gotten home the night before. The pastels in the sky transitioned to bright blue as he trailed a finger across a cheek. Gone were Victor’s beautiful artwork there, and those clothes, slung in his wardrobe waiting to be washed. But there was an almost tangible, tingling trace left behind. Whatever old facet of himself had once lingered, whispering in his ear that he was ugly and people would laugh at him and he had no right to play at any form of sexuality, it seemed to have vanished. For good, he hoped. He’d slipped on a new skin, or so it felt, along with the new clothes; one that comfortably fit the adult he was, with the life he had now.

Maybe he actually owed Greg a debt of thanks, he reckoned as he put his empty plate in the sink and left the apartment, then made his way down the stairs and out the front door. The September mornings held a refreshing bite of chill in the air now, though it wasn’t enough to call for a jacket yet. It did a good job of helping him to wake up, at least. Poor, hapless Greg, he thought, and gave a little snort of amusement as he recalled the anything-but-hapless-looking tall, imposing figure. Who’d helped him claw his courage up from wherever it had been hibernating. And who seemed to have provoked that very interesting energetic response from him that had had unexpected physical consequences. How had this time been any different from all the permutations he’d unsuccessfully tried before – just to move an object a few centimeters across a table, for instance? Did it have something to do with how he’d been feeling, what he’d been thinking? All he could remember was _red_ – the color of anger, and possession, and desire. Maybe he could work with that in the quiet solitude of his apartment; or maybe it was destined to be some odd anomaly that only emerged _in extremis_. Regardless, he was determined to try to explore it when he had the time.

His feet took him automatically to the T station, down the stairs, and onto the platform. He’d had a good workout with the dancing and didn’t care for jogging on top of it this morning. As he went through the usual motions of the commute, images of Victor in his crimson shirt and glimmering embroidered dragon swirled in his mind. In front of him on the dance floor. Next to him, in the taxi. And, if they hadn’t been interrupted by Chris…in bed, he was sure.  

 He sighed and tried to force his mind on something else. It would be tempting to dwell on these things all day; and with Victor there with him in the office, that was exactly what was likely to happen. They were both professionals, of course, and got a different kind of enjoyment from focusing on their research together. Something told him, however, that last night was likely to bring out Victor’s playful mood, and he was going to be even more flirtatious than usual.

Having changed trains downtown, Yuuri stared out at the sparkling Charles River as they passed over the bridge, then disembarked at Kendall Square and headed toward the lush green of the university. Other faculty members were already purposefully striding down the tree-lined paths – and with a flutter of his heart, he spotted Victor coming toward him. But…what was he _wearing_?

“Good morning,” Victor said with a smile.

“Is…is that a _kilt_?” Yuuri said, staring at the red-and-black pleated tartan material that ended just above his knees, secured at his waist by a brown leather belt.

“Are you surprised? It’s the fashion.”

“Because of a Scottish teen pop band, yeah – ”

“Well, it’s still the fashion. I bought it yesterday while you were trying your clothes on. It’s different, don’t you think?” He was otherwise ordinarily attired for a day at the university, with a white shirt and smart shoes, white socks extending halfway up his calves. Yuuri couldn’t stop looking at his legs. Pale and muscular, with a hint of soft hair. Long. Then he realized it would be considered rude if he leered like this at a woman who was similarly dressed, and dragged his eyes away, though he heard Victor chuckle.

“Uh…were you able to arrange something for your friend last night? Chris?” he asked as they began walking toward Building 46.

“I got through to a mutual friend who was able to collect him and take him back to the apartment. Checked with him this morning and he seems OK, though hung over from whatever drug was in his drink. He said he was going to try to find the man he’d been with last night and pull him up on it, though it sounded like it was a last-minute hookup, so I’m not sure how successful he’ll be.”

“Have you known each other long?” Yuuri asked idly, his eyes flicking back to the kilt and Victor’s legs. He told himself to stop. Victor had done this on purpose, he was sure.

“Several years. He’s been a good friend; always looked out for me. It’s the least I can do for him, though the fact that he’s in New York and I’m here made it difficult last night.”

“Yeah, I would’ve thought so.”

Victor looked at Yuuri with hooded eyes as they approached the entrance to the building. “I was _very_ disappointed to have been interrupted just then.”

Yuuri’s throat hitched as they passed through the doors and into the atrium. “There’ll be other times,” he said quietly, staring ahead.

“I’m pleased to hear it. Maybe we can talk about that when we get upstairs.”

Yuuri felt a pulse of heat that went straight to his groin. The teasing with the kilt was bad enough. But now that they were talking about last night, too…There were a hundred different things he would have liked to be doing with Victor in this moment, and none of them involved anything appropriate for work. It was going to be a long day at this rate.

They walked in silence, apart from exchanging greetings with other faculty members, until they reached the office. Victor stopped and leaned against the wall in the hall as the door snicked open, looking at Yuuri and then running a finger down his cheek. “Your face looks so bare without the make-up,” he said softly. “Beautiful, but bare. It really suited you, you know. We should do that again sometime. It almost felt, when I woke up this morning, like last night had been a dream. If it was, it’s the sweetest one I’ve ever had.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, then Yuuri turned silently and entered the office, followed by Victor. As soon as they were both inside, however, Yuuri whirled around and pinned Victor against the door, initiating a blistering kiss, one hand in Victor’s hair and the other resting on his hip against the kilt.

“You’re driving me crazy this morning,” he muttered.

“That was the idea,” Victor countered, mischief sparkling in his eyes.

“How you’ve got the nerve…” Yuuri said, capturing his lips again. He found the hem of Victor’s kilt and slipped his hand underneath. “The audacity…” His hand traveled up the bare, taut muscled thigh underneath as Victor gasped against his lips. Was he really doing this? Jesus, it was so sexy. He was already getting hard. Maybe Victor wasn’t the only audacious one.

When he looked into those blue eyes, it seemed as if Victor was waiting for something. And as his hand carried on traveling up, he discovered…nothing. There was not a stitch of clothing under the kilt. His fingers brushed against the gather at the top where the belt held it in place. Then they curled, tense, against the skin. So lewd. And so very, very hot.

“Holy shit,” he breathed with a shudder.

Victor’s eyes danced with amusement. “Isn’t that how a Scotsman is supposed to wear a kilt?”

“You’re not a Scotsman.”

“Rugged man of the north. Not that different.”

“You are _impossible._ ” Yuuri gritted his teeth and leaned against Victor, fingers reaching for the old-fashioned barrel lock that was still on the door and sliding it firmly home. His chest tight, his breaths quickening, he pulled Victor into a hard kiss while he rucked up the material of the kilt with one hand and then traced over the top of his thigh and down the inside, teasing, lingering, knowing he was on the verge of crossing a line between them.

“Yuuri,” Victor broke their kiss long enough to sigh in wanton encouragement, and there was no more hesitation. He found Victor’s cock and wrapped his fingers around it, and Victor closed his eyes and moaned. _I’ve done this to him,_ Yuuri thought in wonder, taking in the sensual sight of his flushed cheeks and parted lips while beginning to slide his hand up and down, velvet over rigid steel. The feel of doing this to someone else – someone he loved – was incredible. His fingers found the tip and smeared precome around the head for a better glide, eliciting another strangled noise from Victor.

Before he could angle in for a kiss, however, Victor whispered, “Can I touch you?”

“God yes,” Yuuri practically groaned, realizing he’d been aching for it but concentrating too much on Victor to pay himself much mind. He continued to stroke him while Victor gave him a deep wet kiss that made his knees buckle. Then he gasped as Victor unfastened the front of his pants and palmed him through his boxers, squeezing and caressing.

“You’re so hard for me,” Victor said breathily. “I love it.” Yuuri tightened his grip and quickened his movements, and was rewarded with the sight of Victor temporarily coming undone. But then the focus soon returned to those blue eyes and he drew out Yuuri’s length, starting to stroke as he placed open-mouthed kisses over his cheek.

“Victor,” was all Yuuri could say as a tide of desire washed through him. He made himself remember to keep his own hand moving.

They kept their faces close, their broken kisses punctuated by gasps and moans and little cries until they were both panting, their firm quick hands pulling mounting pleasure from each other. Yuuri clutched at Victor’s back, his head tilted up, hardly able to keep his eyes open, feeling his orgasm build like a flood at the gates.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Victor said against his cheek between clumsy half-kisses.

“Not as long as I’ve wanted you,” Yuuri choked out.

“We ought to start making up for lost time, then.”

“I wouldn’t say no. God, Victor…it’s so good…”

“Come for me, my Yuuri…let go…I want to feel it.”

Yuuri shuddered, Victor’s words tipping him drunkenly over a cliff, and he thrust into his hand, coming with a cry. Victor milked him through it, panting into his hair, beginning to thrust into Yuuri’s own grip until he came himself moments later, Yuuri watching in fascination as waves of heat continued to pulse through him. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, both of them holding each other so intimately, hands coated with each other’s release, their breaths hard and fast but slowly quieting.

Yuuri’s head flopped onto Victor’s shoulder and Victor chuckled and kissed the top of it. “That was a proper good morning, don’t you think?”

“If that’s all it was, I’d love to see your good night,” Yuuri laughed.

“I very much hope so.”

Yuuri huffed and kissed his shoulder through his shirt. As sensual as the mess they’d made was, it could also be a problem he hadn’t foreseen. What should they do now? He didn’t carry tissue boxes or towels around with him, and couldn’t very well clean them up with his shirt, not when he needed to be wearing it.

“Dish towel,” he said, removing himself quickly to the sink and grabbing it from the counter, then returning so that they could both use it. “I’d, uh, better put it in my carryall to take home.”

“Yuuri,” Victor said before he could dash away again, “that was wonderful. I can’t say I’m in the habit of doing such things at work, but…” His voice trailed off, the radiant smile settling in its place finishing the sentence for him.

“It was,” Yuuri said; and they shared a kiss, long and tender.

A few minutes later, Yuuri couldn’t understand why the door wasn’t opening when he told it to over his chip. Confused, he pulled at the handle. Then Victor slipped the lock open with a grin. Yuuri couldn’t remember an occasion when he’d used it before now, but at that moment he was surprised he could even remember his own name. They went to the men’s room for a more thorough clean-up, then returned to the office.

_How am I supposed to concentrate on working with Victor when we’ve just done_ that _in here? Right there, against the door?_

Sex against the door. He could do it again and again. How many different ways…?

_Jesus. I’ve got work to do._

He knew a dopey smile kept spreading across his face, and Victor seemed to be drinking it in.

_Victor, you are utterly shameless. Nude underneath a kilt, at work._

He struggled to stop thinking about it all day, but managed most of the time to focus on planning the next phase of their study, when he didn’t have to excuse himself to meet with students. It was sobering enough to consider the needs and challenges involved in working with people with psychosis, and that helped Yuuri to focus his mind. They discussed the formulation of questionnaires and interviews, the types of tests they could run in the lab, and the results they were hoping for, especially when compared with the previous cohort. It was work that would take days yet to complete, on top of their other commitments, but it felt to Yuuri like they were on the same wavelength at least; and Victor’s expertise in the area helped a great deal.

At lunchtime, Yuuri was pleased to find an excuse to leave the distraction of the office for a while and suggested they visit the food trailers outside the building, where they bought salads and eggrolls, eating them on their favorite sofa in the atrium. The bright sun shining through the glass walls and ceiling there was not baking hot today, and they remained there for most of the afternoon, discussing holograms and typing notes into their tablets. A relaxing jog when they were done for the day, and a long kiss goodbye, and they went their separate ways, both of them having confessed they had a stack of work to get through.

On his way back to his apartment on the T, Yuuri thought yet again about the morning’s encounter with Victor. It brought a surge of heat to his face, and his groin, every time he did. While he didn’t regret giving their relationship space to grow at first, now that they had become more physical, he wondered if he would ever feel satisfied; that aching need kept trying to push itself to the forefront of his mind. Was this how Victor had been feeling? For how long? How did he deal with the frustration? Then he realized what the answer surely was, and smirked. Maybe this was normal, though – the novelty of something new and exciting. He wanted to try so many things. With Victor. And then lie in bed encircled in his arms, warm and replete and full of love. Whose bed, though? Should he –

He was almost too late to get off the train at the stop near his apartment house, and dashed onto the platform just as the doors began to close. Christ, the man was distracting even when he wasn’t actually present. He was floating so high, it felt like his feet were barely touching the ground.

_Victor, Victor, Victor. I love you._ He felt like a teenager again – a happy one this time –  and let out a laugh.

Once in his apartment, he got himself a calming cup of chamomile tea and sat down on the sofa to plow through a couple of hours’ worth of grad student research and lesson planning. He was grateful for it just now, as the work gave him a solid foundation on which to stand; a distraction that cleared his head and pacified his system. So absorbed was he, in fact, that he lost track of time, and wasn’t aware until he put his tablet back into his carryall for the night that the sun was going down and he was hungry because he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch.

He told the Friday to play a random selection of Queen songs, and sang to “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” swaying his hips and doing the odd twirl as he pulled pots and pans out of the cupboard and food from the fridge and started to cook. Halfway through, his chip beeped. A call from Victor.

“Hi,” Yuuri said in a soft voice that almost sounded shy. Which was ridiculous after what they’d gotten up to in the past twenty-four hours.

“Yuuri!” Victor’s cheerful voice came in reply. “How are you?”

“I’m…fine. Is everything – ”

“OK? Sure. Am I allowed to call my boyfriend from time to time?”

_Boyfriend._ The word still sounded magical somehow. “Yeah. It’s nice to hear from you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Uh…cooking dinner.”

“And listening to Queen.”

Yuuri told the Friday to stop the music.

“You didn’t have to do that. I can still hear you.”

“It’s OK. I’ve listened to enough for now.”

“Hey, should I be jealous of this jack, or what?”

“Who…” Yuuri said in confusion as he tended to the food on the hob. “…Freddie Mercury?”

“That’s the singer, right?”

“Yeah. And no…definitely not. Jealous. Victor Nikiforov is the real man I lo…want.” He swallowed and stirred.

There was a pause. “What are you cooking?”

“Pan-fried steak with blueberry sauce, and broccoli and cheddar.”

“Wow. Sounds like a restaurant. This is what you whip up for yourself on a weeknight, is it?”

“It isn’t hard to do. Why, what did you eat?”

“Pizza.”

Yuuri tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “OK, why not. What kind?”

“The best kind. Pepperoni, oozing with cheese.”

“Ugh, my stomach just did a somersault thinking about it. And how can you eat stuff like that and stay so slim?” He caught himself, too late. The topic of Yuuri’s past weight problems hadn’t arisen since that night at Nexus, nor had they said much to each other about food, though he’d noticed Victor hadn’t brought anything sweet to the office since then.

“I guess I’m just lucky,” came the gentle reply.

“Anyway,” Yuuri jumped back in quickly, “if this sounds nice to you, come over sometime and I’ll cook it for us both.”

“Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing. If you’d like to come over here for a meal. Say, Thursday evening? I’ll be at Harvard for the day, but it’d be lovely to see you afterward. If you don’t have anything else planned, that is.”

“Hmmm, well…” Yuuri pretended to consider. “My Friday’s program needs to be manually updated, since I hacked it and it can’t do it automatically now. And I’ve got laundry that needs to be done. And…” He made sure there was a playful tone to his voice. “Oh yeah, the test tubes need washing in the lab and it’s my turn.”

“You still have test tubes?”

“But I _might_ be able to squeeze you in.” Then he realized the import of what he’d just said and gasped, doubling over with laughter.

“Oh yes, please,” Victor drawled between his own laughs.

“Play your cards right and we’ll see,” Yuuri said, aiming for seductive this time, but spoiling it with a giggle.

“All right. I’ll get a carry-out from a five-star restaurant and say it was something I tossed together at the last minute. A symphony to serenade us, though it might be a little tricky fitting them all into the living room…”

“And something…decadent for dessert? Though not chocolate Spartak cake, as nice as that was, because I’ve already tried it.”

A pause. “Are you sure?”

“I’m not a monk, Victor. I can…indulge in things sometimes, you know. I don’t want to stuff myself full of food, but at the same time – ”

“Leave it to me,” Victor said brightly. “This will be fun. How about seven o’clock?”

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

They ended the call, Yuuri again feeling like he was standing – no, dancing – on top of the world. He’d wanted so much to say a simple “love you” at the end of the conversation. It would have felt so natural. Well…maybe after Thursday, he’d be able to.

He served up his food, which was more than welcome by now, and was savoring the last bite when his chip beeped again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so popular.

“Hi, Phichit,” he said as he took his plate and cutlery over to the sink and began to do the dishes.

“Hey, Yuuri. What’s doin’?”

“Late dinner, just finished. What about you?”

“On my way downtown to go clubbing. Still trying to rope me a steer, but it’ll happen eventually. I’m meeting a few people there.”

“It wouldn’t happen to be Qi, where you’re going, would it?”

“Oh, have you been with Victor?” Phichit asked excitedly.

“Yeah, last night in fact. I’ve never been anyplace like it. You never told me about it; I wouldn’t have thought it was the kind of thing you liked.”

“Well I’m not going there tonight. But maybe sometime soon. Liang took me there a few times. It was cool.”

Yuuri thought back. Two boyfriends before Aroon, though he could be wrong. “Yeah. And different. Victor and I wore fancy clothes.” Well, _he_ considered them fancy. They were probably still casual wear for Victor. “He painted our faces. It kind of felt like going to a masquerade.”

“So how _was_ it? Did you have a good time?”

“You could say that,” Yuuri hedged as he scrubbed the frying pan. He wondered how much to share. They used to talk about boyfriends and sex with frank ease, though that was mainly Phichit, because Yuuri was usually out of the equation as far as those things were concerned. And yet, “boyfriend” seemed like such a casual term for what he felt for Victor, even though he still loved the idea of actually having one. “In fact,” he added, “I probably would’ve ended up spending the night at his apartment if he hadn’t gotten an emergency call from a friend. But I’m going back on Thursday for dinner.”

“Wow. With the looks you were giving each other, I thought you’d already been chowing the fan for a while.”

Yuuri huffed. “Thanks, Phichit.”

“Sorry.”

“You know I’ve never done this stuff before. Well, hardly. It took me a while to get to where I needed to be – mentally, emotionally…Besides, we’ve been on some great dates.”

“Sure, I get it. I’m happy for you too, honestly. It’s about time you found somebody. He seems like a real flink bo.”

Yuuri laughed. “Yeah. He’s special. You know, um…I’m probably on target to lose my virginity here. So…any advice?”

“Shazam, Yuuri. Go for it.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“OK, well…no offense, but you tend to overthink things. So I’d say just go with what feels right. Make sure you’ve got some lube, too.”

“I do. Victor’s probably got some, anyway; a dozen different kinds.”

“You’ll be fine,” Phichit said in that reassuring voice he used when Yuuri was fighting off an anxiety attack, which he wasn’t. “You two are such a cute couple. If I wasn’t meeting some prime bos tonight, I might be a little jealous.”

“Just watch yourself, OK?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Most of the time.” Yuuri sighed. “After all those years of looking at his picture on my wall…sometimes I still can’t believe it, you know.”

“Well, _I_ knew you’d get there one day. No one should ever underestimate the quiet storm that’s Yuuri Katsuki.”

Yuuri snorted as he washed the last dish. “Have a good time, Phichit.”    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6D_BAuYCI) by Queen


	22. Chapter 22

Yuuri’s next couple of days at MIT, minus Victor, were subdued. He finalized his plans for the next unit in his Nutritional Neuroscience course, spent hours in the lab checking on his students’ progress, and refined some ideas for the methodology he and Victor intended to use in the second part of their study, ready to discuss with him on Friday. Very productive, all in all, he thought with some pride.

Wednesday night, Victor called again, just to say hello apparently. They talked about music and movies and foods they both liked. Yuuri wasn’t used to having regular conversations over his chip, and the thought of calling Victor himself still hadn’t occurred, but he made a mental note to take his turn next. There was something fun and sweet about just yakking inanely to each other while they weren’t doing anything that required much concentration, and Yuuri was again filled with warmth by the thought that he had a best friend in Victor as well as a boyfriend.

Later, he lay on the sofa with the brainwave-entrainment device hooked around his ear and relaxed into a light trance, then attempted to recreate the ball of energy that had escaped from him and hit Greg. At least, that was what it had felt like. But no matter how hard he tried to amass and launch some kind of “charge” in his solar plexus region, it just sat there. Maybe the strong feelings he’d experienced in the club had been a factor; but how was he supposed to conjure anything similar when he was alone and calm in his living room?

The “ESP scene” had been quieter than usual, as well. He still did his evening sessions several times a week, and met someone he “knew” on the odd occasion, or someone who needed his help; but nothing untoward had occurred. He could be grateful for that at least, he thought. Maybe someday, too, he’d discover a way to prove to Victor – and the world – that it was real. He ought to have asked Onawa for ideas when she’d been in the lab, but he suspected it might have been a pointless exercise anyway, since she was surrounded at home by people who took her abilities for granted, and had no need for empirical proof of their existence.

Thursday afternoon he jogged back to his apartment after work in the hope of getting rid of the tension that had been building at the prospect of going to see Victor. He told himself over and over that it was no big deal; that their time together was always special, and there was nothing to be nervous about. Victor never put any pressure on him to do anything he didn’t want to do, so he could always change his mind. It was his own stupid fault for making this into something big and daunting.

Eventually he was staring blankly at the clothes in his dresser drawer, wondering what he ought to wear, knowing Victor wouldn’t care anyway. Nothing that suggested he was trying too hard, so those leather pants were out of the question. Not his work clothes, either. That left the usual jeans and dark T-shirt, he supposed. Though he’d bought some gel and used it to slick his hair back after a shower, as Victor had seemed to like it that way, and truth be told he thought it was flattering too. Add a pair of tennis shoes, and _voila_ …or, well, just plain Yuuri. But that would surely be fine.

He took the T to the Harvard area and arrived at Victor’s apartment building just after seven, telling the Friday outside to let Victor know he was there; and in a moment Victor came to show him in, greeting him warmly and telling him dinner was just about ready. He was wearing black slacks and a pink button-down shirt, with a blue-and-white-striped apron over the top.

Yuuri breathed in. “It smells wonderful. What have you been cooking? Is it…French? Garlic. Wine. Leeks?”

Victor glanced back at him as he disappeared into the kitchenette area. “Wow, you’re good. I’m not sure if the recipe’s French, but I’ve used all those ingredients. Why don’t we eat at the table this time? Can I get you anything to drink?” Before Yuuri could reply, he added, “Water – or something stronger? A soda? C’mon, Yuuri, walk on the wild side,” he said with a gentle smile.

Yuuri laughed and sat down at the little wooden table, which had two chairs and was set with plates and cutlery. “There’s nothing better than ice water. Sorry, but it’s true.”

“I can’t interest you in some red wine? I’m having a glass.”

“Well…OK, I’ll share some then. But just one glass.”

Victor brought two glasses of red wine to the table, then a bowl of leeks in cheese sauce, and took their plates; when he returned, each had several oyster shells filled with an interesting mixture that Yuuri peered at, trying to identify the ingredients. “You went to a lot of trouble, doing all this,” he said.

“It was fun. It’s nice to have someone else to cook for, for once. Those are oysters covered in a paste made from ground almonds, garlic, white wine, butter and parsley, with some salt and white pepper. The leeks aren’t anything fancy, just a Gruyere cheese sauce. I can’t claim to have invented any of the recipes, but I’ve had them before and I thought they were nice. Well…the almond paste is supposed to have breadcrumbs in it, but bread isn’t paleo, is it? So I used some extra ground almonds instead.”

“Victor, I…um, that was really thoughtful. Thank you.” He put some of the leek mixture on his plate and then tried one of the oysters. “Oh…that’s delicious.”

A relieved smile lit Victor’s face. “Thanks. And…before we drink any wine, should we make a toast?”

“OK. What to? Your wonderful meal? Our study?”

Victor’s eyes met his and held. “How about to you and me…and many happy days to come. Hm?”

Yuuri felt his cheeks flush and he gave him a smile. “That’s good.”

They clinked their glasses and sipped, still gazing at each other. Yuuri felt his appetite draining away; not that he’d had much of one to begin with, nerves and anticipation warring with each other inside of him.

However, he did justice to Victor’s beautiful cooking, feeling flattered that anyone would want to go to such lengths just for him. He knew he wouldn’t have felt any differently about Victor if he couldn’t so much as boil an egg, but it was nice to think that he’d found someone else who enjoyed cooking, too.

They remained at the table when they were done eating, sipping their wine and discussing what they’d been doing at their respective universities over the past couple of days. Victor said the epigenetic research he’d been conducting at Harvard was promising; and since it was a field that was growing in popularity, they had given him indications that they might want him to remain on a permanent basis. “It’s possible they’ll make me an offer soon,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “In which case, I intend to accept. I’d still be going back to Columbia in New York, but…I’d be here most of the time.”

Yuuri gasped. “That’s _wonderful_ , Victor.” He huffed and smiled, unable to find more words. Of all things, he hadn’t expected to hear something like this tonight. “A-As long as that’s really something you want to do.”

“Of course it is.” Victor reached out to grasp Yuuri’s hand on the table with both of his own. “I’d be happy to stay at Harvard. But more importantly, I want to be with you.”

Yuuri felt an ecstatic swoop shoot through him. “I want that too.”

“I’ve been thinking of things we could do together. Mt. Greylock was beautiful. Maybe we could go camping there sometime. Or…plan to take some time off together, and hike along the Appalachian trail. What do you say?”

Tears pooled in the corners of Yuuri’s eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever been close to crying because he felt _happy_. “I’d look forward to it. All of it.” He sighed and swallowed, drawing little caresses over Victor’s topmost hand. “Victor, I…”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Victor pulled gently away and went into the kitchenette, then returned with a dark brown box. “Your…indulgence.” He smiled.

“You shouldn’t have. But I guess I did ask. What is it?” Yuuri took the top off the box and discovered an array of truffles inside. “Oh…wow.” They looked gourmet and expensive, with printed patterns of different colors and molded and piped swirls. He picked out the one he thought was prettiest and took a bite, tasting honey in the center. But the outside…that wasn’t chocolate. Not quite. It was fruity, with a bitter but not unpleasant tang, and far creamier, smooth and rich.

“Cupuaçu?” he asked tentatively.

Victor nodded. “You know, I’ve never tasted it before myself.” He took a truffle and popped the entire thing into his mouth, deliberating as he chewed. “Hmmm, not bad. It’s got a kind of…silky feel.”

“That’s best savored slowly, little by little,” Yuuri said with a small laugh as he took another delicate bite of his own. “Like a lover’s kiss,” he added softly, giving Victor a heated look. He had no idea where the words had come from, or how he’d found the courage to say them, but he felt a triumphant frisson as Victor let out a breath and stared back in surprise, his mouth stilling its movements temporarily before he swallowed the truffle. Feeling encouraged, Yuuri picked up another truffle and made a show of taking a bite, hooding his eyes. This one was filled with some kind of creamy vanilla. When he gave a little moan, it wasn’t completely inauthentic.

“Jesus,” Victor breathed, watching.

Yuuri finished the truffle, the melting cupuaçu and buttery center sliding over his tongue. He sighed and closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them as a thought struck him.

“Wait a minute. Cupuaçu, oysters, almonds. You – you’ve been reading my sex paper! I mean,” he corrected himself, remembering how tired he’d gotten of people calling it that when it had been published, _“_ _The neurochemistry of aphrodisiacs in the male sexual response._ All of those things were in it.” He eyed Victor across the table.

“I might’ve had a look.” He flashed mock-innocent eyes at him.

“Those were the _three things_ we said probably seemed to have some aphrodisiac qualities, based on changes in neurochemistry.” Victor waggled his eyebrows at him, and Yuuri let out an explosive laugh. “You are the absolute limit, you know that? You’re _shameless._ Do you think you needed those with me anyway?”

“Honestly? No. But I’ve eaten them too, remember. It could be…fun.” He popped another truffle into his mouth. “These are lovely. Would you like to dance?”

“I – what?”

Victor stood with a smile and held out his hand. “There, in the living room. Any song. Any style. Though if I may make one request, why don’t we start with Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’? I’ve been wanting to dance to it properly with you for a long time, instead of just jogging when it comes on over the chip.”

“I’d love to,” Yuuri said, taking his hand.

Victor told the Friday – a pleasantly bland middle-of-the-range male voice – to put the music on over the speakers in the room, and gave Yuuri authorization to command the Friday as well, so that he could choose songs to play. Then taking Yuuri’s hand, holding his waist with the other, Victor led them in a lively dance, circling around the room. Yuuri could hardly stop himself from laughing in sheer delight as he copied Victor’s movements and watched his bangs flop over his forehead. He could imagine him as a ballet dancer, tall and lithe and graceful, and wondered what the world had been missing with his decision to pursue science instead. It felt like they were riding waves of sound and rhythm in harmony, each anticipating the other. If they put some kind of routine together and practiced, what might they be able to achieve?

As the song ended, Yuuri shook off the delirious dreams. What call would two neuroscientists have to choreograph a dance routine? They were just here in Victor’s apartment, having fun. But he liked the classical music; its soulfulness and complexity made it a joy to dance to. He asked Victor to pick several more songs for them before Victor insisted he choose some himself. Leafing through his mental file of truly old oldies, Yuuri decided on a few rock and roll classics, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry and “I Get Around” by The Beach Boys. They dipped and spun each other until Yuuri was dizzy and they were both giggling. Deciding to finally wind things down, Yuuri told the Friday to play “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers.

“Oh I like this one,” Victor said, circling his arms around Yuuri’s waist. “Very romantic.”

Yuuri just smiled up into his eyes and draped his arms around his neck. They glided slowly and swayed, needing no expertise for this type of dancing; but Yuuri didn’t care. His heart soared and his skin tingled. Their cheeks brushed; he could feel Victor’s breaths hot against his skin. Was this what being in love was really like? It was utterly intoxicating.

They’d both given up on moving their feet now, and were nuzzling and ghosting lips across skin. Yuuri gently kissed along Victor’s jawline from his ear to his chin; then Victor tilted his head back with a finger and leaned in for a long, slow kiss while caressing his cheek. “How’s my aphrodisiac experiment going?” he finally broke away to ask in an amused huff.

“I think we might need to gather more empirical evidence before we can draw any inferences from the data,” Yuuri said against his lips with a smirk.

“Oh?”

“We should try changing one of the variables. Like our location. Maybe we could see what happens in the bedroom.”

Victor hooded his eyes, and Yuuri could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He dipped down and kissed it.

“I like that suggestion,” Victor whispered. “Jump up here; wrap your legs around my waist.”

Yuuri balked for a moment. He’d never done anything like that before and had a sudden catastrophic vision of them both toppling over onto the floor.

“Come on,” Victor said into his ear. “I know you can.”

Yuuri gave it a try, and felt Victor’s strong grip underneath his thighs, holding him up. Suffused with tingling warmth, he leaned down and gave Victor a deep kiss, running his fingers through his hair.

Victor moaned and tightened his hold, then walked them into the bedroom, gently depositing Yuuri on the double bed. Yuuri pulled off his shoes and socks, dropping them to the floor, and Victor did the same. The décor in here, as with the rest of the apartment, was neutral; peaceful. The room smelled of Victor’s aftershave. It felt strange being in someone else’s private quarters like this. Intimate. Then Victor was on the bed as well, on all fours, leaning over him, his bangs tickling Yuuri’s nose.

But Yuuri knew what he wanted; what he’d been waiting to do. He reached up and loosely gripped Victor’s shoulders. “On your back,” he said. Then he added, “Please.”

“OK,” Victor said with a little smile, doing as he’d been asked, his eyes on Yuuri.

Hesitating at first, and then with growing confidence, Yuuri unbuttoned the front of Victor’s shirt, pulling it open and pausing to admire the sculpted chest and abdomen underneath. “Can I – ”

“You can do whatever you want, Yuuri,” Victor said, his eyes dancing.

“I’ve never done this before,” Yuuri confessed, his cheeks pinking, suddenly caught between longing and uncertainty.

“Kiss me,” Victor urged him quietly.

Yuuri surged forward and captured his lips, then broke away to trail more kisses down the underside of his chin, his neck, his collarbone, licking and teasing as he explored. _This_ was what he’d wanted to do, though it seemed he’d needed the extra boost to his courage that Victor had just given him. He found a nipple and sucked and laved at it, Victor’s gasps and sighs sending waves of desire through him. How lucky was he to be doing this – and for Victor to be enjoying it? It hardly seemed like it could be real.

He continued to roam with his mouth and hands until Victor removed his shirt completely, then asked Yuuri if he could do the same. They reversed positions, and now it was Victor’s turn to explore.

“Yuuri, you’re beautiful. I always wanted to tell you. I’m so lucky to see you like this.”

The odd echoing of his own thoughts sent a frisson down Yuuri’s spine. Sure, it was easy to think that about Victor – probably many people had before; but for Victor to be thinking it about him – ?   

Then his thoughts were shut down completely as he felt Victor’s hot mouth on his neck and chest, mirroring what Yuuri had just done to him. Wherever he pressed kisses, Yuuri felt desire radiating underneath. He ran his hands through Victor’s hair and over his back, breathing his name. Then Victor’s lips were on his again, passionate, their tongues tangling. When he lowered himself so that their hips were pressed together, Yuuri groaned, instinctively thrusting up. They began to grind against each other, firm and slow. Yuuri felt like he was swimming through liquid heat, burning through to his core.

“Yuuri… _zvezda moya_ …what would you like to do?” Victor said against his skin. “Or would you like me to decide? Whatever you want, _zolotse._ ”

Yuuri vaguely registered the unfamiliar Russian, loving the sound, making a note to ask about the meaning later. He placed a hand on Victor’s cheek and met his eyes. “I…I want to make love with you. I want you inside me.”

Victor exhaled and propped himself up, returning his gaze with widened eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he huffed, with the ghost of a laugh. “But there’s no rush, if you’d rather – ”

“I’ve wanted it for a long time, Victor. To be that close to you. If…if you want it too.”

Victor blinked and looked at him tenderly. “I do. Oh, baby, I do.”  

A shiver of delight raced through Yuuri at the answer, and the term of endearment. His eyes followed Victor’s hand as it reached over to the bedside table, where he pulled open a drawer. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. There was something he hadn’t noticed before, sitting on the table next to the lamp, under its white beam. Something small, and shining.

A ring made of a dark-colored metal, fashioned at the top into a snake coiled around an ivory-colored stone in the oval shape of an egg.

It was unmistakable: the exact symbol he’d been seeing over and over, just before –

“Victor,” he choked out, “what’s _that_? That ring – that symbol. I’ve never seen you wearing it. _What is it?_ ”

“What?” Victor’s brow wrinkled in confusion as he followed Yuuri’s line of sight. “That? It’s just a ring.”

“No it isn’t. It means something. The Orphic egg. _Tell_ me.”

“W-Why should it mean anything to you? Have you seen it before?”

_Get off of me. Get off of me right now._ Yuuri gave enough of a push that Victor did so, enabling him to scramble off the bed and pull his shoes on. “Yes,” he bit out. Then he met Victor’s eyes, insistent, pleading. “I need to know. It’s important.”

Still the look of confusion. “I…I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s…classified.”

“Classified?” Yuuri echoed, his worst fears now confirmed. Tears pricked at his eyes as he grabbed his shirt and quickly pulled it over his head.

“I’m not allowed to talk about it. Yuuri – what’s wrong?” Victor sounded mystified; frightened, even. As if that wasn’t exactly how Yuuri himself felt right now.

“I’ve got to go,” he announced, darting out of the bedroom without looking back.

“Yuuri – wait!”

He could hear Victor getting off the bed and coming after him. Running headlong toward the door, he told the Friday to open that and the front door to the apartment building before Victor had the chance to rescind voice control and lock him in. Ignoring the cries from Victor for him to stop, he dashed out into the night and immediately ducked down a dark alley to avoid being an obvious target under the street lamps. He concentrated on getting several blocks away before attempting to call for a taxi, only to discover that his chip had blown again. That would also prevent him from traveling on the T, since he needed it to be able to pay for a ticket and get through the barrier at the station.

_Fuck._

He was standing in the dark, under a row of trees fringing a small park, the nearest street light several meters away. There was no sound of pursuit, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be. He shivered in the chill, and had the absurd realization that he’d left his socks on the floor in Victor’s bedroom.

_Victor._

He suddenly felt as if he were choking, with black electric tendrils creeping up his back and extending into his limbs. The shivering grew in intensity until his teeth were chattering, but he knew it wasn’t from the cold. Instinct told him to find a dark corner nearby to curl up in…to make himself as small as he could, wrap his arms around his legs, and try to disappear, as ripples of anxiety coursed up and through him.

“Victor,” he said aloud with a sob.

Anyone could find him here, at any moment.

He had to run.

***

The tech shop near MIT, where he’d gotten his chip replaced last time, was still open. He went inside and ignored their questions about how on earth such a thing kept happening to him, insisting they didn’t sell faulty goods. All he knew was that if he didn’t do this, there was little he’d be able to access, including his own apartment. You were supposed to call the landlord in an emergency, but without a chip you couldn’t do that either, unless you had some other device you could use, which Yuuri didn’t; he had left his tablets in a desk drawer at work, not having expected to need them tonight.

Once his new chip was fitted, he ordered a taxi. As he traveled, he saw that Victor had tried to call several times. He switched the answering facility off.

The taxi pulled up to the building and he got out and let himself in. It was only as he was opening the door to his apartment with a shaking hand that he realized he wouldn’t be able to stay here; that Victor and whoever he worked for – whoever that symbol represented – would know what had happened and where he was. Maybe they had been waiting for something or letting things pan out for a while; but now their cover had been blown. He would have to get away, at least temporarily; and the last thing he wanted was for them to come for him here while he was asleep. He pulled on a pair of socks, then grabbed his carryall and took several deep, shuddering breaths, trying to force his mind into some kind of coherent thought pattern.

Pack, he had to pack. What did he need to take with him? Darting around the room, he grabbed some spare clothes and personal items and shoved them inside the large blue backpack he used for hiking, along with a coat and a blanket, and the contents he quickly emptied from his carryall, then hurried back outside. With it already being late, maybe…maybe he ought to find someplace unobtrusive close by where he could watch the area and see if anyone suspicious turned up. He was no judge of the wisdom or usefulness of such a plan, but it seemed something purposeful to do for now.

Eventually he settled down in a dark, narrow alleyway across the street where he was concealed by deep shadows but could see the entrance to his apartment building. If he could fight off the temptation to sleep, he might possibly learn something.

The concrete was cold and hard against his rear and back. He took the blanket out and tucked it underneath him, then pulled on his coat. The night was quiet and still, and he felt the adrenaline slowly draining from him. Unfortunately, that had also been keeping the anxiety at bay; and it began to creep through him again, along with all the horrific implications of what he’d just experienced.

He’d never been happier in his life than he’d been that evening. And then…He simply couldn’t believe it. How could he have been so wrong about Victor? The danger that symbol represented to the people he’d been in contact with via ESP – that was real. Even Onawa had told him she’d sensed something ominous about it. Surely Victor could never be connected with such a thing.

Was all that flirting just for the purpose of seducing him so that Victor could make him completely vulnerable – like he’d been tonight? He’d assumed Victor had been reaching for lube in that drawer; but what if it had been something else? A gun, for instance? Though if that was what he’d wanted to do, surely he’d have had plenty of opportunities before now?

_And how can I be thinking such things about Victor, of all people?_

_Because the facts are staring me in the face._

_But…I was sure I knew him. Loved him. He can’t be capable of that._

_How naïve. That’s exactly what he wanted me to believe._

_This is all a bad dream. I’ll wake up in the morning, and go to work, and Victor will be there, and we’ll say hello and kiss._

_Victor…_

Each thought was a new blade piercing his heart. Had it all been a lie? Had he lost…something that had never existed in the first place? No, no…it hurt too much. He couldn’t contain it. Must stop thinking about it.

Even so, despite forcing his mind into blankness, he found himself fending off tears as well as drowsiness. They welled up from some deep pool of despair that existed inside, whether he consciously acknowledged it or not.

_Victor…_

But was the Victor he was crying out for a real person, or a construct that had never had any real substance?

_Why would anyone want to spy on me, or…or hurt me? How could anyone feel threatened by me?_

Though the same could be asked of Dove and the others who had disappeared so ominously after they’d sent him the image of the Orphic egg.

Eventually his thoughts subsided into a torrid, muddy background that was subsumed by sleep that faded in and out, though he kept forcing himself awake to maintain his watch on the apartment building. However, if anyone had gone inside, he hadn’t seen them; and eventually the dawn arrived, clear and cool. The watery yellow-white rays peeking over the eastern horizon did nothing to dissipate the haze of exhaustion that had settled into Yuuri’s bones. He stood, feeling like the hapless actor in a dream that was still in progress, and stowed his blanket in his backpack.

What should he do?

Get away, as he’d purposed the night before. Though where?

First, he decided, he would risk a trip to his office. His tablets contained his research notes. Maybe he would never have any use for them again. But, logical or not, he couldn’t bear to be parted from them; and the idea of any unauthorized people gaining access was anathema. Hopefully, they – whoever _they_ were – wouldn’t want to risk forcing an encounter at the university.

It would be dangerous to go back to his apartment. Instead, he headed straight for the T station and downtown, where he went to Mei Wei and bought a bag of eggrolls and a carton of water. The last thing he wanted to do was eat, but he also needed energy and a clear head.

Before he caught the second train out to MIT, he made one more stop and bought a stun gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Spring” from _The Four Seasons_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-dYNttdgl0) by Vivaldi
> 
> [“Johnny B. Goode”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM) by Chuck Berry
> 
> [“I Get Around”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wREBD2og5iY) by The Beach Boys
> 
> [“Unchained Melody”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0) by The Righteous Brothers


	23. Chapter 23

He’d never owned a weapon like this. Never even touched one. Though he knew that plenty of people carried them around for protection. He was one of them now.

It was a small white cylinder, shaped like a cigarette. There was a ring on the end so you could attach it to something like a bag. He tucked it into his jeans pocket.

As he made his way to the university from the T station, it occurred to him that Victor might already be in the office, though it would be unusual for him to arrive this early. What would Yuuri say to him? An image flashed in his mind of what could – what _should_ – have taken place this morning. Both of them wrapped up in the warmth of Victor’s bed, and in each other’s arms, as the sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains across the window.

His stomach gave a heave. Maybe somewhere along the line, he’d somehow stumbled into some dystopian alternate reality.

_You can keep wishing it all away, or you can deal with it. Only one of those options is likely to end up with you staying alive._

He began to jog toward Building 46 – and saw Victor approaching from around a corner. There was shock on his pale face. But it was possible he’d just been waiting for Yuuri to arrive so he could stride out like this and pretend to be the concerned boyfriend. And yet, for a moment, all he wanted to do was sweep it all to the side and run into Victor’s arms. Instead he simply stopped and stood still as Victor tentatively closed the rest of the distance between them. Unlike Yuuri, he’d changed his clothes from the night before, and was wearing gray slacks and a white shirt. There were circles under his eyes. His hands hovered at his sides like he kept second-guessing what he wanted to do with them.

_Oh god,_ Yuuri thought as he looked at him, his heart racing. _I can’t do this. Why, Victor, why?_

“Yuuri…” Victor said in a soft, low voice, those beautiful blue eyes brimming with worry. “I…I tried to call you last night, but you didn’t answer. I thought about coming over to see you, but…I figured you might have wanted some time to yourself. After…well, I can’t say I understand what happened, but you were so upset. Can you talk to me about it? Or – or go someplace with me where we can?”

“Tell me why it’s classified,” Yuuri insisted, deciding to get straight to the point. “That symbol. What does it mean, Victor?”

Victor paused and then said, “I – I can’t talk about it, Yuuri. I’m sorry. But it’s nothing sinister, believe me.”

“If you don’t tell me,” Yuuri said firmly, digging up as much resolve as he could find, “this conversation ends right now.”

“I…” Victor thought for a moment, then sighed in resignation. “OK. But there isn’t a lot to tell. The Orphic egg is just the icon for the organization I do the operations for at Columbia. It’s confidential because it’s government-sponsored work that’s still in its developmental stage, so it hasn’t been made public yet. I’ve been part of it for years now; I chose the symbol myself. It…it’s meant to suggest light and wisdom – healing; a return to normal after psychiatric illness.” He paused again. “That’s all it is.”

“Go on. Tell me about the ring. Why it’s on your bedside table but I’ve never seen you wearing it.”

“I wear it when I go to Columbia. There’s a chip inside that gives me access to secure areas; having it in an object like that makes it a lot harder to hack.” Another pause. “Yuuri, please tell me why – ”

“You’re not some kind of agent, or…or spy for them?”

Victor looked shocked. “What? No. You…think someone’s out to get you?”

“You tell me.”

“Well…of course they’re not. H-How long have you believed this?”

“I don’t know _what_ to believe,” Yuuri said, his voice wavering.

Victor lifted his hands in a pacifying gesture. “The organization I work for…we’re a charity. We help people. We…I could help _you_ – do you remember me saying so before?”

That gentle voice…so chilling now. Like an echo from days long past. _Just relax, Yuuri. Everything’s all right. We’re going to take good care of you. Now swallow your medicine._

“Just a simple operation,” Victor carried on quietly. “No more presences. No more paranoia. All you’d need to do is come to New York with me – ”

At these last words, Yuuri pulled the small white stun gun out of his jeans pocket and pointed it at Victor, who flinched and stared with wide eyes. _Come to New York with me._ So much easier for them if he did it willingly. What was really going on in that keen, calculating brain behind the caring façade? The presences who’d disappeared had never had much time to register the Orphic egg symbol before they were cut off. It had to have happened quickly; unexpectedly. How many more had seen it but not been in contact with him at the time? Just how many people did this involve?

And yet even now, the hand holding the gun was trembling. Some voice inside of Yuuri kept insisting that this wasn’t who Victor was; that something was wrong somewhere. Well, he knew he’d willingly pick over every detail he could grasp, a hundred times over, if it helped him to reason away, however flimsily, what he’d learned. It was called cognitive dissonance: the psychological stress, and resultant maladaptive coping mechanisms, involved in simultaneously holding two or more contradictory beliefs. The Yuuri who loved Victor was fighting tooth and nail against the Yuuri who had seen that ring on the table. But now was not the time to mourn the death of one of them.

He set his jaw in determination and tried, unsuccessfully, to still his hand. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you – to make me think this is all in my head? That all I need is this operation of yours? I’m not paranoid, Victor.”

Victor’s eyes were beseeching. “Anna, my sister, couldn’t function in the everyday world until she had the operation. Please – let me help you. I can cure you, and…and we can be together. Y-You’re pointing a gun at me, Yuuri,” he continued, his voice beginning to shake. “Do you really believe you’re thinking straight?”    

Yuuri swallowed, then took several quick breaths. “Are _you_ thinking straight? You’ve never underestimated my intelligence before. Do you do it yourself – whatever it is that happens to these people with ESP who disappear? Do you force the operation on them? D-Do you…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “…do you kill them?” Victor tried to protest but Yuuri cut him off, speaking up again. “Stop the act and tell me the truth – you owe me that at least, after…after everything up to now. What _exactly_ are you and the people in your organization – does it even have a name? – doing to people like me? How many of you are there? What’s really going on, Victor?”

Victor was waving his hands in agitation, then seemed to notice and think better of it, and stilled them but kept them raised slightly, as if approaching a wounded animal. “I…I’d never do anything like that. If you were well, Yuuri, you’d know; you’d realize.” He let out a shuddering breath. “The organization – the Coughlin Institute – we help people with treatment-resistant psychosis who are usually desperate because nothing else they’ve tried has worked. It’s their last hope. And we’ve had great success. We don’t force the operation on anyone. We certainly don’t…I don’t…” He choked on his final words and left them unsaid.

Yuuri could feel each individual piece of his heart shattering still further, and didn’t know how much longer he could bear to stand here having this conversation before he either collapsed or made a mad dash either into the building or far, far away from it. “Those presences I told you about. The ones I’ve been in contact with. Several of them communicated that symbol to me before they vanished. And I never heard from them again. It frightened… _terrified_ them. That’s not someone going voluntarily into an operation. That’s someone fearing for their _life._ ”

Victor shook his head. “No – please, just listen to yourself.” He dropped his voice to almost a whisper. “I know this must all seem very real to you right now. But you need help. I can help you. Please, Yuuri – come with me, if you ever trusted me.”

_“Don’t talk to me about trust, Victor,”_ Yuuri said explosively, tears springing to his eyes, his hand holding the gun shaking so much now that he braced his wrist with his other hand. “That…that’s gone. It’s not coming back. But if you care about me at all, you’ll let me leave. I’m just going to go in and get some of my things. I-If you try to come after me, I…” He choked back a sob. “…I’ve still got the gun.” He could hardly bring himself to say, “Goodbye, Victor,” before hitching the strap of his carryall over his shoulder and hastening backwards through the door into the atrium, watching Victor. Watching the grief-stricken, despondent expression on his face as tears slid silently down his own cheeks.  

Turning and forcing one foot in front of the other, Yuuri tucked the gun back into his pocket and quickly made his way to his office, brushing at his tears with the sleeve of his fleece.

_I threatened Victor with a weapon. Jesus effing Christ. Maybe I really am out of my mind._

He would not think about Victor right now. He had to focus on getting away; that was his number one priority. The office door snicked open at his silent command and he sat down in his chair, pulling his fleece off and shoving it into his carryall, then fishing his tablets out of the desk and doing the same.

There had been no one downstairs at the security desk when he’d come inside; there never was until nine a.m. But camera footage of the front of the building would show him aiming the gun at Victor. Well, by the time anyone was alerted to that, he would be long gone.

He was about to close the drawer when he spotted the two framed photos he’d removed from the wall. Five months ago, it had been. Five months, and so much had changed – and then changed again…With no further thought, he grabbed them both and stuffed them into his carryall as well.

At least Phichit hadn’t been around to watch this shitshow, he thought bitterly. He stood and scanned the room in case there was anything else it might be prudent to take with him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the door opening; and before he could think to do anything other than stare in bewilderment, Crow stepped inside, dressed as Yuuri remembered, in jeans and denim jacket with a dark T-shirt, his hair cascading to his waist. In his hand was a laser gun, smooth and oval-shaped and silver, fitting in the palm of his hand – and it was pointed straight at him.

Yuuri remembered how he’d sensed Crow’s presence near his apartment building; how it had been there in the background during his stay. And yet how he’d felt nothing when he’d passed him beforehand while jogging.

_He must know how to hide it. I still can’t feel it now._

It would have alerted him. He’d have been ready by the door with his stun gun. Though why Crow was here, this morning…Then his eyes alighted on the ring he was wearing. It was identical to Victor’s.

“All those thoughts flashing through your head,” Crow said with a low chuckle. “Don’t worry, I’m not exactly a mind reader, but I can see them in your eyes. Give me the stun gun.” He held out his hand, and Yuuri silently stepped forward and complied.

“Why – ”

“I’m asking the questions here,” Crow talked over him, tucking Yuuri’s gun into his breast pocket. “Anyway, this thing – ” He waved the laser gun. “ – is just a precaution. I have no intention of hurting you. But I’m curious about what you know about the Coughlin Institute. What happened last night? Why didn’t you sleep in your apartment? Why did you pull your stun gun – which you only just bought this morning – on Dr. Nikiforov? Especially since you’re so…friendly with him.” The final sentence oozed, accompanied by a humorless smirk.

_How does he know all this?_ Yuuri thought desperately. _Did Victor tell him? Or…_ His eyes kept flicking from the ring to the gun and back.

Crow twitched his ring finger. “That’s right, I work for the Institute. We’re…interested in your potential. Though if you keep going like you are, we’re concerned about the possibility that you might become a security risk.”

“I – I don’t understand. And why weren’t you honest with me when you stayed at my apartment, saying you were homeless?” Maybe a prerequisite for being a member of this organization was a willingness to lie, he thought.

Crow shrugged. “You understand that people who work for the CIA can’t always be honest up front.”

“The CIA?” Yuuri echoed. Did…did that mean Victor was a CIA agent? How far down the rabbit hole was this day going to take him? His head was spinning.

“I was originally sent to spend some time with you and assess whether you posed a risk, and if so, what the nature of it was. I couldn’t exactly tell you that at the time.”

Yuuri shook his head. “Why do you keep talking about a risk? What risk?”

This time when Crow smirked, there seemed to be genuine amusement in it. “You don’t even know what you’re capable of, do you? Look…I’ve been asked to extend an invitation to you to join the Coughlin Institute. We’re not the monsters you seem to think we are. I have ESP, as you call it, and I work for them. I’m very useful, in fact.”

_If you work for them, that’s reason enough for me to steer well clear._ “Well this is all, um, very sudden,” he said. “If you don’t mean me any harm, then you can go away and give me some time to think about it. I’ll get back to you and let you know.”

“Sorry, but I can’t do that, Yuuri.” He smiled at him, dark eyes flashing. “I didn’t think you’d be very interested, but I had to ask at least. There’s another alternative, though; one maybe you’d like better. If you wanted to be free of the ESP completely…From that little connection we shared, I got the idea you might be happy for that to happen, after all the pain it’s caused you. Hardly anyone believes it’s real, do they? You’ve been surrounded your whole life by people who think you’re sick, and I’ll tell you something – that’s never gonna change, unless you take me up on my first offer. But you can have an operation to make it stop. Dr. Nikiforov offered to perform himself, didn’t he? Even though it was more than he technically should’ve told you without taking you in for a consultation first. We’d be happy to let him do that for you.” He smoothed his voice. “You’d feel like a new person. Normal. Isn’t that what you really long for, deep down, Yuuri Katsuki?”

_What a performance._ But surely Crow didn’t think he would believe anything he said. He was still aiming the gun at him, for a start. And there were all the deceptions. This shady organization, supposedly affiliated with the CIA. His comments about Yuuri being a security risk. All the private information he knew. Too many things to count. Yuuri began to wonder how he could possibly get out of here without being shot, but his mind drew a blank at every turn.

“How do you know about last night?” he asked, purposefully dodging the question. “That I didn’t sleep in my apartment?”

Crow just gave a quiet mocking laugh. “You’re talking to someone who works for the CIA, and you’re asking me that?” Then he quickly sobered. “What’s so special about this ring? When you saw Dr. Nikiforov’s, you freaked out. What do you know about it? These presences you told him about – what exactly went on with those, and the image they sent you? Had you heard of the Coughlin Institute before today?”

Clearly, Yuuri thought, he was dropping all pretense of wanting anything from him other than information. At least that in itself was an honest motive. But…if he knew about Yuuri’s reaction to Victor’s ring, that meant either Victor had told him, or –

“Oh don’t look so shocked. For a scientist, you can be incredibly naïve. Yuuri, nothing you’ve said has been secret for a long time. Back when you started researching the Orphic egg, certain people took notice. That symbol, it belongs to stuff that’s classified; it’s not in public circulation. Not with the terms you were using to search for it on the Cloud. You tried talking to a few authorities about it too, though they were only ever able to tell you stuff about its traditional meanings, which we didn’t care about.”

“I…I never saw anyone watching.” Yuuri’s stomach was tying itself in tighter and tighter knots with each revelation that stripped away more layers of illusory privacy. Not that it was a complete surprise. The way the government knew about what people at the university were considering for their research after they’d had one supposedly confidential conversation with a colleague…He’d even told Victor of his suspicions. But coming face to face with the stark reality was something most people never wanted to do; the implications were too horrifying to contemplate. Therefore, not wanting to believe, you could bury your head in the sand and hope that if you weren’t aware of them – whoever _they_ were – they wouldn’t be aware of you. Yuuri realized he was guilty of his fair share of that. How could you not be, and function?

“There wasn’t anyone to see,” Crow said. “They listen over the chip.”

“But I turn it off.”

“It’s never turned off,” Crow said with a laugh. “Honestly, are you for real? I still had some respect for you before I walked through that door.” He lowered his voice. “Problem is, it can’t monitor what’s going on in your head. And where people with ESP are concerned, that’s…inconvenient.” He paused, then the smirk was back. “They could’ve squashed you like a bug, Yuuri. But they wanted to find out what you knew. And what you were hoping to accomplish with Dr. Nikiforov. Trying to lure him here to do research with you. Well, you’ve ended up doing a lot of other things with him too, haven’t you? You were having fun, from the sound of it, especially here in your office, and last night – up to a point.” 

Yuuri sucked in a breath. They…they’d been listening in? To how much? For how long?

Crow took in his expression and laughed again. “Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed. It wasn’t exactly risqué, what you were doing. Or saying you wanted to have done to you.”

“You’re sick,” Yuuri spat out.

Crow puckered his lips in sudden irritation. “If you think I sit around all day listening to that stuff like some kind of pervert, I’ve got better things to do. Most people don’t matter enough to be monitored around the clock anyway, as much as they might wish they did. Including you. Besides…we can always be notified by the menial staff who filter through it so we can listen back to something good we’ve missed.” He snorted.

Yuuri imagined a bunch of strangers standing around a floodlit room in some secret compound, listening to him and Victor like they were starring in their own porn production. Had Victor known this was going on? Thoughts of other things they might have overheard across days…weeks…years began to invade his mind, each a shard that pricked him. He should have realized, or at least been more consciously aware of the possibility. He’d been an utter fool.

“Come off it,” Crow huffed. “You think it isn’t anything we haven’t heard before? You wouldn’t believe the weird shit some people get up to when they think nobody else is around.” He grinned. “We’ve got every important person in this country – and in lots of others – wrapped around our little finger. They wouldn’t dare step out of line, with all the dirt we could dish on them.”

Yuuri momentarily wondered why Crow was telling him all this, then surmised it must be some kind of power trip. The man was practically flushed with pleasure. Feeling truly nauseated now, Yuuri struggled to think of a plan. If only someone would come to the office – then he changed his mind, fearing what the result would be.

“Is Victor in on all of this?” he blurted before he could stop himself, knowing he wouldn’t be able to trust the veracity of whatever answer he was given anyway.

Crow’s grin widened. He said in a soft, pitying voice, “Oh, poor Yuuri. Afraid his boyfriend might’ve pulled a fast one on him. You must be so confused.” He added more firmly, “We seem to be getting nowhere, and I can’t stand here all day. I’ve given you a couple of choices. Join the Institute and you’ll find out everything you want. Or have the good doctor insert a blocking chip for you.”

“Neither.”

There was a tic at the corner of Crow’s mouth. “There’s a third alternative I didn’t mention, but I guess you know what that is. Don’t be a gonk. You’d be valuable to us. And there’s so much I could teach you…we didn’t even get a chance to skim the surface before you kicked me out of your apartment.” The last words fell on a bitter note.

Yuuri’s eyes flashed. “Do you honestly expect me to hurt other people with ESP – the ones I’ve been helping all this time?”

Crow sighed, meeting his gaze with a hard stare of his own. “With what I already know about you? Fucking bleeding-heart Yuuri Katsuki? No. But I had to give you a chance first. Those were my orders, sunshine. Shame you didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Victor – though you did in a way, come to think of it.” He snorted a laugh. “You waved a gun in his face. I bet he liked that.”

Crow’s words were poking at a wound that had already been rubbed raw. Yuuri filled with outrage – and suddenly knew what to do.

“Option number three, then,” Crow said quietly, raising his gun.

Everything changed in a second.

The window turned opaque. The lights went out and the office was plunged into darkness. Loud shack music blared.

A luminous line of blue flashed from where Crow was standing, but Yuuri had already ducked to the side, and then launched himself forward. Having caught his assailant by surprise, he was able to quickly and forcefully knock the gun out of his hand. Crow grabbed his shoulders and tried to throw him to the floor, but Yuuri shot his leg out, unbalancing him. In the seconds the distraction provided, Yuuri reached for the ceramic mug he knew was on his desk and, calculating where Crow’s head must be, brought it home with as much strength as he could muster. He heard the thud even over the shack music, and Crow crumpled to the floor, then lay inert.

He stood and silently reversed his commands to the office, the music stopping and the lights coming back on. Crow certainly seemed to be out cold, the remains of the shattered mug on the carpet next to him. There was no blood, but Yuuri knew he’d hit him hard. He located where the laser gun had skittered away and picked it up, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans, his T-shirt hanging over the top. Then he took his stun gun back from Crow’s jacket and stuffed it into his jeans pocket, put on his backpack, and paused.

What was the best way to get out of here? With a stab of panic, he realized there could be more of these people in and around the building, waiting to intercept him – even Victor. Despite the immediate danger he was in, Yuuri couldn’t help but feel a heave in his chest and a prickle at his eyes every time the man he’d thought he loved came to mind. But he couldn’t just stand here feeling sorry for himself.

He gave another silent command, this time for the window to open as far as possible, and the pane shot up far enough for him to be able to climb through. There was a fire escape outside. Would he find someone waiting for him at the bottom?

He’d simply have to chance it, he decided.


	24. Chapter 24

As he clattered down the loose metal stairs, he drew the laser gun out and kept it to hand, not having even given it a cursory glance to figure out how it worked, but taking comfort in the fact that anyone he pointed it at wouldn’t know that.      

There was no obvious sign of anyone deliberately hanging around as he got to the ground, and he breathed a quick sigh of relief, then ran – across swatches of green, under large shady trees, over the street. Soon he lost himself in Kendall Square, slipping around the corner of a delicatessen there and pausing in the shadows to think.

It seemed wildly improbable that this could be happening to him when people were browsing on the other side of this wall with nothing more important on their minds than what they wanted in a sandwich for lunch.

_Cognitive dissonance maladaptive coping mechanism number one: straightforward denial. This simply isn’t happening. I can go back to yesterday and rewrite it in my mind. Victor telling me he wanted to stay on at Harvard if they’d let him…_ He could feel the tight bands squeezing his heart again, but his thoughts rattled on. _Dancing with him…Believing we were going to…_ He heaved a breath, a tear slipping down his cheek. _Wanting it so much. It felt so right. How could everything have gone so wrong when it felt so right?_ More tears followed the first.

_Oh, better not forget that Crow showed up in my office just now, trying to kill me. That kind of thing really puts a crimp in your day._

_Not to mention the fact that someone’s been listening to possibly everything I’ve said and done for years._ An image sprang to mind of a crusty little bald man in a white lab coat hunched over a desk in a dark corner for hours on end, paid to do nothing but tune in to what Yuuri Katsuki was doing and saying, whether it was watching a movie, talking with Phichit, teaching a class…more private things, even. _Bastards._

Giggles bubbled up and out of him, sudden and uncontrollable, like a geyser teasing at an imminent eruption. He slipped the gun back into the waistband of his jeans and took a series of steadying breaths, willing his mind to clear of all thoughts, though the bubbles continued to froth in his chest. MIT, and everything – everyone – he cared about were just a few blocks away from where he was standing, but it might have been light years for all the difference it made.

_I can’t think about any of that now. I…I have to decide what to do. Where to go._

As soon as Crow regained consciousness, they would know what had happened. They might even know now; there was no telling how many different ways they had of getting information. It was imperative, he told himself, to use his time wisely.

_My chip._ He inwardly recoiled at the thought of it. As long as he carried that inside of him, they’d be able to track his every move, and there was no doubt they were listening, even now. From that alone, they’d probably guessed what he’d done to Crow.

His bank was just around the corner. It was possible they hadn’t yet done anything to freeze or take control of his finances. He dashed over to it; and when he went inside, he was told he would be allowed to withdrew all of his money in cash, which was what he did. It was of course niff and dangerous to walk around that way, but what other choice was there?

Next he revisited the tech shop. They were surprised to see him again after having replaced his chip the night before, and could not comprehend why he wanted it removing. He insisted there was nothing wrong with it and didn’t want his money back, but they still seemed offended and mystified. However, in the end he offered them enough money to placate them, though they said they were not comfortable with accepting cash and would do it just this once. Yuuri had a sinking feeling that this would be the norm now wherever he went. After all, just to pay Dave at the market in cash, he had to be ever mindful of keeping a stash in his apartment for that specific purpose – the apartment he didn’t know when he’d be seeing again. If ever.

He wandered into a deli and bought food he could carry with him – jerky, dried fruit, cheese, nuts, cartons of water; though he still had no idea where to go. Returning to the shadows between the stores, he leaned against a cool brick wall and tried to gather the scraps of his thoughts into something that made sense. But they resisted.

_I’m alone._

_They’re going to be looking for me._

_I can’t go anywhere I usually go._

_I’m in love with someone who’s probably been conspiring to kill me. God help me. Maybe I ought to just walk straight back there, like a moth to a flame, and let him consume me._

_No. I’m not giving up that easy._

Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, Onawa’s words came back to him from the day they’d had contact via ESP in the lab. _Beware the Carrion Eater…he is relentless._

Crow.

A shiver passed through Yuuri. Then another, and another. His throat constricted, and sweat sprang out on his brow.

“No,” he hissed aloud to himself. _No. That’s not going to happen. I’m not helpless. I’m not. I’m going to think of something._

He took his backpack off and pulled a tablet out. Victor had tried several times to call him, and left messages. Yuuri ignored them and called Phichit, who answered immediately. His face and voice were like a blessed balm, even though he looked more worried than Yuuri had ever seen him. At a guess he was in the engineering building, though it was hard to tell; there was just a white wall with some shelves behind him.

“Yuuri! Where are you? I heard – ”

“I’m OK, Phichit.” Though he wasn’t. And besides, he suddenly realized, there was little he could tell his friend now that he’d called him. Phichit had a chip in his head, over which someone was undoubtedly listening. Yuuri was pretty sure it wouldn’t be hard for them to pick up on his call signal either, and listen over that. If he ended up being responsible for telling Phichit anything that got him into trouble because it meant he knew too much, Yuuri decided would never forgive himself. “Um…I’ve got a problem right now, actually – ”

“Victor’s frantic. He said you pulled a stun gun on him? Since when did you even have one of those? What’s happening, Yuuri?”

Ignoring the question, he asked, “Have you been to the office today – the one we share?”

“Back and forth, yeah. Why?”

“Did you find anything unusual there? Um…was anyone in there? A broken mug on the floor?”

“No. Why – what happened?”

Yuuri swallowed and closed his eyes.

“Yuuri. Please…we want to help you. Where _are_ you?”

_We. What’s Victor told him?_ “I have to go away.” His throat hitched, but he made himself continue. “I – I don’t know for how long. I might not be able to come back.”

“ _What?_ Look, if you won’t come here, can I come see you?”

“No. I can’t tell you where I am. Just…I…I wanted to say goodbye,” he finished, and cut the connection, a tear plashing onto the screen of the tablet. He wiped it off and returned the device to his backpack, which he slung over his shoulders.

_They’ll be tracing me here after that call. What good did it do?_

But having seen a friendly face one more time…it was heartening. Phichit was just over there, a few blocks to the southwest, thinking about him.

He knew there was a small park nearby and he ran to it, then stood as far into the bushes and trees as he could. There he took out the laser gun and inspected it for the first time, turning the weapon over and over in his hands. Cool. Smooth. Deadly. Though the controls seemed to be absurdly easy – one setting for stun and one for…for kill. Which was what it was set to now.

_Is that any surprise? Did I really doubt that was Crow’s plan all along?_

He changed the setting to stun. It was still likely to be more efficient and have a longer range than the cheap civilian stun gun he’d bought. This was the sort of thing the police and military used. And, apparently, the CIA.

Out of curiosity, he switched the setting back to kill and pressed the button to fire, aiming it at a tree. A blue line flashed out and burrowed a smoking hole through the trunk. Yuuri jumped backwards.

“Fuck,” he squeaked, changing the setting back to stun and shoving the weapon back into his jeans. At least he felt protected, in a way. Though he would rather not have needed a weapon at all.

Yet again, however, he found himself faced with the necessity of deciding where he should go. Oxford came to mind, but it was easy to dismiss that as a possibility. He would never return to his family, no matter where they were. That part of his life was over. Whether or not the CIA was aware of that, it was no doubt one of the first places they’d look for him anyway. Furthermore, if he tried to leave the country, he would have to give the aviation authorities access to his electronic passport. If that was even possible without a chip, they would apprehend him. Taking a plane somewhere domestically also meant passing on personal information that would be verified before he traveled. That went for trains, too, and long-distance bus journeys, and rental cars…Jesus, just how was he going to get around?   

The idea of trying to get by without a chip was becoming steadily more frightening. If he so much as went to a Hubway station to rent a bike, he would not be able to pay; the machines didn’t take cash. He couldn’t go back to his apartment to dig out his own bike, which he hadn’t used in months anyway because he had been walking or jogging or taking the T. Besides, what was he going to do – cycle, walk or jog across the country?

_Across the country? Is that really what I’m doing?_

How did the merchants in the market survive without a chip? It had to be possible. He considered going downtown to visit Dave and ask him. But maybe that would just be another way of putting off a decision about where the hell he was supposed to go, not to mention what he would do when he got there.

Wait…there was a Cloud café around here somewhere, wasn’t there? He could search for information at one of those. They were mostly used by people without chips, but that included young children who couldn’t have the implant yet because their brains were still developing rapidly; so there was a clientele for them besides the poor and the small number of others who – perceptively, it turned out – objected to the chip on principle.

Ironically, his instinct was to check his chip to find out where the café was and how to get there. He thought he could remember, and he knew the area well enough, though of course not every corner of it. Did anyone even sell paper maps anymore? He could probably buy a decades-old one in an antique shop, but that would be no help.

As he jogged down the sidewalk, trying to focus on what he had to do to survive, his body nevertheless expressed the feelings he was forcing down. Shivers passed through him despite the warmth of the day. Nausea continued to eat at the pit of his stomach. His heart was hammering in his chest, and it wasn’t from the little bit of running he’d done. It felt as if he were drowning and needed to come up for air but was barely managing to gasp his way to the surface. Willpower could only fight these effects off for so long before it gave out, he knew. But what choice did he have other than to carry on? Maybe once he got someplace where he could feel safe – if any such place existed – he could start to calm down.

Finally he arrived at the café, a little rundown public room tucked into a long row of carry-outs and nail bars and dollar stores. There were few people inside at this time on a weekday morning, mainly parents with children. Yuuri went to the attendant at the desk, a young woman who barely looked up or spoke as he paid for an hour’s use of Cloud interface. Finding a quiet niche, he sat down on a vinyl bench with a rip in the side that was leaking stuffing, tapped a wall-mounted screen to life, and found himself looking at a desktop picture with icons and a keyboard at the bottom. It took a long time to manually touch and type, and the system was slow. But it wasn’t so bad, he thought, once he got used to it.

Maybe he would have to. He would never have a chip implanted in his brain again; not by choice. How that meant he would live the rest of his life, however, was a question he was in no position to address.

He searched the Cloud for types of transport he could use without a chip, but was quickly disheartened. You could drive a car if you already owned one. Some taxis took cash, but not many. There seemed to be no other options than going by bicycle or on foot. As for places to stay…it looked like a few motels would take cash. Yuuri could find one to stay in for a while. But his money would run out – and then what? How would he get a job? What did people without chips _do_? Manual work was rapidly disappearing as it became automated. There were many people subsisting on poverty-level state handouts. He didn’t want to become one himself – but even for that basic level of income, you needed to be documented, which would require sharing your up-to-date details with the government, if not having a chip. Doing anything science-related would require a chip as well. And was he really ready to contemplate a long-term plan for his life just now? He could barely even process what had occurred in the past twenty-four hours.

Then he remembered something he’d heard about for the first time when he’d lived in Stanford, though he was young and hadn’t understood what it had meant. Offline communities. His father had spoken the term in hushed tones, as if they were dens of vice. Since then, he’d come across it now and again. Communes where people could choose to go to make a living free of the chip. Media on the Cloud, when it mentioned them at all, tended to be lighthearted or mocking. Pictures of groups of men and women bathing nude in a stream. Little wooden huts with kinked iron chimneys that looked like they’d sprung out of a Brothers Grimm tale. Scenes of people high on psychedelics, claiming they were expanding their minds.

_I wouldn’t fit in. At all._

But there’d also been passing mention of communities that were more ecologically oriented. Now that he searched the Cloud, he could see that while there was little information available, there wasn’t a complete dearth. Each community was individually run and themed. They were illegal in the United States, though proliferating in California. If he could somehow get out there…maybe he would be able to settle, for a while. Get his bearings. Decide on plans for the future while not having to fear that someone might turn up at any moment and try to kill him. Well…that anxiety was never going to go away as long as they were hunting him, he knew. But maybe hiding in such a place out west, where people didn’t have chips, would be like hiding a leaf in a pile of other leaves. He could hope so, at any rate.

But which community to choose? It seemed that many had no presence on the Cloud at all – through deliberate choice or because they were censored, it was impossible to know. Maybe he would have to get to California and then do some research there. But how? Hitchhiking sprang to mind – but anyone who picked him up was likely to be chipped, and that would put them as well as him in danger. Could he stow away in the back of a truck? How did people do that kind of thing?

He sighed, leaned his elbows on the wooden counter, and put his head in his hands. His forehead felt cold and damp. Tears were beginning to well again.

_I don’t know how I’m going to do this. Any of it._

“Sir, your session will be up in five minutes,” the attendant said from the desk.

He was glad she did – because when he turned around to look, he spotted a dark-haired man wearing a black Tang tunic and black pants just outside the glass frontage; when the man noticed his attention on him, he ducked away, presumably around the corner. He’d been holding something…a gun.

Yuuri shot up from the bench and yanked his backpack over his shoulders. _Shit, shit, shit. What do I do?_ “Are there any windows here?” he called to the attendant.

“Windows?” she echoed, furrowing her brow at him. “Why?”

“Because I need to get the hell out of here ASAP – there are people after me.” He followed her eyes to a corridor and made a beeline for it.

“Wait – ” she began; but any further words were drowned by the shattering of sheets of glass. Yuuri heard some kind of blast, similar to the sound Crow’s gun had made when he’d aimed it at the tree; and then a scream.

No windows here in the dim hall as he ran. The door to the men’s room came up on his right and he pushed it open, spying a closed frosted-glass window above a row of sinks. Dashing inside, he scrambled up onto them and tried to lever the window, which wouldn’t budge. Pulling the laser gun out, he shot it at the glass; there was a bright white flash, but nothing else.

Feet pounded down the hallway outside.

Yuuri switched the gun to the kill setting. _If this doesn’t work on the glass, it may have to work on you,_ he thought as he squeezed his eyes closed, knowing the man would be upon him in seconds.

This time when he fired, there was an almighty crash, and he opened his eyes to see the gaping window blown almost clean of all remains of glass. He grabbed the bottom of the frame and hoisted himself up and through, still clutching the gun, just as the door began to open.

Landing on a narrow sidewalk butting up against a park with a low wrought-iron fence, he sprinted into the greenery and through a cluster of bushes, hearing more blasts somewhere behind him. Somehow he still found the presence of mind to set his own gun back to stun, despite the fact that the gonk behind him frankly deserved all he got.

All too soon, however, this little stretch of park ran out and he discovered he was on a sizeable street. There was no point in doubling back; he’d be seen. Not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than he already had, he shoved the gun back into his waistband and concentrated on moving as swiftly as he could. There was a fairly large crowd of people here, milling around the stores that lined the pavement on either side. Maybe he could lose himself in it. Deciding it wouldn’t be wise to potentially trap himself inside another building, as well as endanger the people inside, he turned several corners; the blocks were thankfully short. There were no sounds of pursuit. Yet.   

Back to another main street. It would be dangerous to try to get across without waiting for the pedestrian light; but it would only be a matter of seconds, surely, before his pursuers appeared. Maybe he ought to just go for it and hope any cars that passed would detect him and stop in time…

At that moment, a giant electronic billboard on the side of a tall concrete building across the street flickered, the shampoo ad it had displayed disappearing – and in its place now, a large still image of…him. Fleeing through the streets, wide-eyed with fear. It must have been taken only a few minutes ago; he recognized his surroundings.

Words in white sprang up at the bottom: “Have you seen this man? Dr. Yuuri Katsuki. He has a severe illness. Be a good citizen and help him return to his family.” There was a number to call at the bottom.

He froze. People nearby gasped and pointed. Shouts echoed against the buildings: “There he is!” and “Look! Somebody stop him!”

The cameras could be anywhere. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t move, _now_ …

He ran straight into the street, eyes watering, breaths razoring his throat. A couple of cars stopped on a dime, rocking back on their wheels, passengers shocked into alertness from sleep or a chip-induced haze. A window opened and abuse streamed out. Yuuri carried on without pause, zigzagging around blocks, cutting through more small parks. He was not the fastest sprinter, but he had stamina. And without a chip, as long as he avoided traveling down main streets again, there was a chance he might shake off his pursuers. A red cloud of desperation that told him to _run, run for your life_ pounded in his head and animated his limbs, pushing, driving him, even while he gasped for breath and his muscles began to burn.

Were announcements about him being sent over the Cloud to people in the area, via their chips, even now? he suddenly wondered. In which case, everyone who saw him was a potential threat.

A surge of panic steered him into the next alleyway he came across. He dashed ahead blindly through the dank garbage-tinged air, hugging to the shadows, his gasps audible in the still, close confines.

He didn’t get far, however, before his progress was suddenly halted by the brick side of a building. The only way out was the way he’d come in. How could he have been such a clinker?

He stopped. Whirled around. And caught sight of an object silently hovering in the mouth of the alleyway, about four meters above the ground. It was small, maybe forty centimeters in diameter, oval-shaped and white, with some kind of tiny aperture in the front, hard to make out from where he was standing. But he knew it was a drone – that was clear enough. Had it seen him? Was it after him? What were its capabilities?

Not wanting to find out, he slowly, surreptitiously drew his gun and flicked the switch to kill. Then he aimed it and fired.

The blue needle of the laser reached its target – wrapped around it, bathing it, and…faded. An answering beam shot back from a tiny opening just below the aperture in the drone; and if Yuuri hadn’t leaped out of the way as soon as he’d realized his gun had been ineffective against it, he would have been incinerated. A chunk of concrete blasted out of the ground where he’d been standing, dust settling over the small pile of debris.

Yuuri huddled against the side of the Dumpster he’d landed against. The drone made no noise; it could be anywhere, though no doubt it would fly into view soon enough…

He wanted to cry. Pray. Hug his knees to himself and wish it all away. Death was stalking him, and there was nowhere to hide.

_No. If I die, then I die fighting. I’m going to make a stand while there’s still breath left in me._

It felt like the longest wait of his life. A bead of sweat tricked down his forehead. Nothing but brick walls up above, opening onto blue sky. His eyes flicked around, wary, searching…

And then it was almost directly above him in the blink of an eye.

He released the coil of energy that had been tensed in his abdomen – it had not been difficult to gather it there quickly, his whole body having been charged – and willed it to surge up to the drone. There was no telling what would happen, if anything at all. But it was the only option he had left to him, and he had to try.

The expected burst of blue light did not occur; Yuuri realized he had been inwardly bracing himself for the final blow. Instead, there was an odd noise that reminded him of eggs frying in a pan, followed by a delicate glowing white web of electricity that briefly encircled the drone. Then it dropped from the sky and clanked when it hit the concrete, rolling to a halt.

He simply stared at it for a moment. The thing wasn’t moving. Didn’t look like it had any intention to. He crept forward and knelt in front of it, reaching out a tentative hand and touching it with his fingertips. It was warm. There were strange thin black lines trailing in patterns over the casing, like tiny scorch marks. Slipping his gun back into his waistband, he picked up the drone and stood, examining it more carefully. Basic, but deadly, obviously; just a camera and a hole from which the laser beam had emerged. It was very lightweight, like holding a cork, though it was made of some kind of metal rather than wood.

Had _he_ done this to it? Why hadn’t it worked when he’d tried it at his apartment? Mind you, he’d never directed his energy into anything electronic; never attempted to destroy. The thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“What have you done?”

Yuuri spun around on his heel to see the man from the Cloud café looming over him, pointing a laser gun. He was…Jesus, he was _hovering in the air_ on a silver disc, a meter or so off the ground. Like a round skateboard. But there was shock and confusion on his face. Maybe the drone Yuuri was holding was supposed to be impervious to attack; laser fire obviously hadn’t made a dent in it.

Yuuri willed himself to ignore, for now, the fact that he’d never seen anything as bizarre as this man on the disc. He was fighting for his life as surely as he was a few minutes ago, when the drone had appeared.

“Put it down,” the man barked. “Where’s your weapon? Get it out, slowly, and drop it on the ground, then kick it away from you. Christ, it must be something special to have done _that_.”

Yuuri’s eyes fluttered shut. The man repeated his order, louder this time. He ignored him, concentrating, gathering…then opened his eyes, willing every last bit of energy he had left into a burst he mentally aimed at the laser the man was holding. It spat white sparks from the end and the seams where the metal pieces of its body were joined, causing the man to yelp in surprise and pain, dropping the weapon as he clutched at his burned hand.

Ripples of relief – triumph, even – passed through Yuuri as he thought of what he’d done to the drone, and now this; but they did little to dispel the overarching sense of unreality in which he felt he’d been moving, like a swimmer deep in murky waters, since he’d seen Victor’s ring. His thoughts racing, he dropped the drone, which clanked to the ground again, drew the gun he’d taken from Crow, switched the setting back to stun, and pointed it.

“Get off that…hoverboard, or whatever it is,” Yuuri told him flatly. “If you make a move to try to get away, don’t think I won’t use this.” He gestured with the gun.

“I’ll have to unbuckle these clamps,” the man said, looking down at his feet. They were secured to the disc by a pair of what looked like metallic sandals.

“Do it.”

He knelt down and released the clamps, then jumped off the disc onto the ground at Yuuri’s behest.

“How does this thing work?” Yuuri demanded, eyeing it.

“You can’t take that. It’s a military prototype. And you won’t be able to go anywhere without everybody staring at you, wondering what the hell’s going on.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He gestured again with the gun. “Move over there, well away.”

The man obeyed reluctantly. “You won’t be able to get away on that. It’d be niff to try.”

“I’ll chance it. You jacks haven’t given me much choice. Now – how does it work?”

The man swallowed. Belatedly, Yuuri realized he must be fearing the repercussions of not only failing to catch his quarry when he had him cornered, but getting this hoverboard stolen from him as well. He had the odd brief urge to laugh.

“This earpiece is a BCI. It translates thought commands directly into the board.”

Yuuri knew that brain-computer interfaces were theoretically possible, at least at a basic level, without implants directly in the brain. But the technology had never physically appeared, and anyone who expressed an initial interest in developing it seemed to back off sooner or later. Now Yuuri could see why. With so many essential functions performed by the chip, most everyone felt they needed to have one; and when it was permanently inside of you, you’d never be parted from it…or from those who wanted to use it to spy on you; even control you. How handy that whatever secret organization this man belonged to had developed non-invasive BCI technology for its own personnel.

“Toss it over here to me,” Yuuri ordered, “or I’ll use this and take it anyway.” There was no need, of course, to divulge that his gun was only set to stun.

The man removed the earpiece and did as Yuuri said, seemingly resigned to the inevitable. “You’ll end up falling into the harbor or spilling your brains against the side of a building, and it’ll serve you right.”

Yuuri huffed, fitting the device over his ear and hopping onto the board, where he knelt and fiddled with the clamps, never taking his eyes off the man, who simply stared back. Eventually the metal clicked and fastened over his tennis shoes. When he tried to lift his feet, he discovered they were securely attached to the board, though with an effort he could do so; the clamps seemed to be magnetic.

“How is this thing powered?”

“I don’t know. You can’t expect me to know everything.”

Yuuri waved the gun. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

The man sighed. “Self-charging battery with a magnetic coil.”

Someone really had been doing their tech research, then. If this board worked the way he thought it did, it was at the cutting edge. The absurd wish to drop it off with Phichit, who would investigate its inner workings like a child with the best Christmas present, flitted through him.

_One day maybe I will._

Yuuri directed his thoughts at the board as if he were using his chip, and felt it rise several centimeters further into the air with a sudden jerk. As he took a breath and focused, the rise became smoother. He looked down at the man, continuing to aim the gun at him.

“Get killed, asshole,” the man bit out.

“Have fun explaining to your superiors how you fucked up,” Yuuri couldn’t help but counter.

The board rose until it was a couple of meters from the ground. Then Yuuri’s gaze shifted to the mouth of the alleyway, and hardly had he expressed the desire to move forward before he was zipping straight ahead, his stomach doing a delirious little flip.

He was surfing the air.


	25. Chapter 25

He flew out over the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding several stunned passersby, willing the board to rise precipitously to avoid colliding with cars in the street. It seemed maybe the BCI was a little too sensitive; Yuuri was finding it difficult to streamline the board’s movements without careering in one direction, then another. It didn’t help that his system was intoxicated with adrenaline, driving him to act before he thought, filling him with the urge to flee as fast as he could.

How high could this board go? Was it safe? He ignored hollers from pedestrians several meters below as he followed the line of the street, desperately trying to come up with a plan of action. While he thought, he tucked his gun back into his waistband and steered the board away from buildings.

If one of these hoverboards existed, there were probably others. Would they follow the first, and come after him? If so, where were they? Were more drones looking for him? And…was someone tracking him? Was there a device giving away his exact location right now, in the earpiece or the disc itself?

_Jesus._

As undeniably flink as this was for a method of transportation, and as tempted as he momentarily had been to keep it – even ride across the country on it, there was no way it would suit his purpose, whatever that turned out to be. If they _weren’t_ tracking him, by some unlikely fluke, then people would see him, and that meant somebody spying through a chip would find out where he was. He might be able to use the hoverboard to cross a large distance in a short stretch of time just now, but then he’d have to ditch it. And he had to assume they’d be tracking him up to the moment he did.   

He veered up and over a copse of trees, dreading the prospect of seeing his likeness on another electronic billboard. There was a park below him; people were jogging and walking dogs…and pointing at him again. Was there anywhere he could go and not be seen? The man he’d stolen the board from was right; there were eyes everywhere.

Maybe it was possible to go high enough, fast enough, that he wouldn’t attract as much attention. He stretched his arms out to either side as if he were surfing, bending his knees slightly. Gradually he was adjusting to the way the board moved with his body, though it wasn’t always smooth. Along with being overreactive, the board made occasional sudden jerks that were surely not meant to be part of the ride; maybe this was what the man had meant by warning him that this was a prototype. Apparently it needed to go back to the drawing board for a while. But his feet were still secure on the metal, and it didn’t feel like he was in any danger of a drop or crash. Not unless those were potential hazards of the prototype. Maybe they were…a shiver ran down his spine. He had to come up with a plan, he _had_ to…

But then as he looked down – about thirty meters down, at a guess – he saw that he was approaching MIT. There were the T tracks, running straight through Building 46. The Great Dome, glimmering in the sunlight. The tree-lined patches of green interspersed with the hodgepodge of buildings, the river nearby…and it was beautiful. He’d been moving maybe 60 kph, but slowed down now to take in the view.

Was Victor still there? What was he doing now? Yuuri shook his head as if to ward off the thought. _It doesn’t matter._

Phichit would be there too. Would he ever see him again?

He turned his face to the sun, sparkling on the blue river, and headed out over the waters, dipping down close as despite everything that had happened, a bubble of elation rose in him, sweeping all other thoughts aside. This was like being on the best amusement park ride in the world, and he couldn’t help but respond instinctively. As he approached the Longfellow Bridge with its salt-and-pepper-shaker towers, he swooped up – with just a few hitches on the way – and over the traffic and a traveling T train.

_This is…incredible._

He saw he was nearing a duck tour, a vehicle that doubled as a bus and a boat. Before he could pull away, he’d been spotted by several passengers, who quickly turned and alerted their fellows, until they were staring at him and whistling and waving. But then some of them jerked their heads to the right – something else had grabbed their attention. His skin prickling, Yuuri willed the hoverboard to shoot up into the air – and narrowly missed the zip of a blue beam as it passed underneath him.

_Fuck._ He grabbed his laser gun and looked over his shoulder to see another man dressed identically to the first sailing through the air toward him on his own hoverboard. Yuuri shot and missed. More blue light streaked toward him. He willed his hoverboard to travel faster, faster…Out here in the open he was a plain target; why hadn’t he thought of that? If he carried on toward the harbor, it would be even worse. He had to get downtown, where the buildings would offer some cover.

His inane willingness to let himself be distracted by the hoverboard and the views it afforded could end up being the death of him, he realized as he felt the familiar anxious tightness in his chest and throat. He continued to fire his gun back over his shoulder, but he supposed even a trained marksman would struggle to hit a fast-moving target from this angle. His pursuer, meanwhile, was sending an almost constant stream of blue light his way; and though he was swerving as he raced through the air, it wasn’t missing by much. He felt the heat of one blast sear the hairs on his arm. Then another blast knocked his gun out of his hand; it dropped, smoking, to land somewhere in the waters below.

He was so close to the cluster of skyscrapers. Yuuri tried to focus on gathering up the energy charge that had knocked out the drone and the first laser gun, but his blood was racing, his mind in a whirl – and whatever he was able to send back seemed to have no effect.

As soon as he got within range of the first building, he zipped past and around the corner – and discovered almost too late that he had to drastically reduce his speed if he didn’t want to end up plastered to the side of one of these edifices. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the little stun gun he’d bought that morning – had it only been a few hours ago? – and fired over his shoulder again as the man reappeared. A hot line of blue exploded a chunk out of the wall of the building next to Yuuri. He gave a little cry and zigzagged again, ducking around another corner and up, climbing high, over the roof and then back down, threading between buildings. This couldn’t carry on…he would eventually be shot. Or make a critical error and crash.

The next time he zipped around a corner, he was confronted by a rising white hovercraft – a flying limousine-cum-taxi, which fortunately did not currently contain any passengers – and shouted in horror, willing his board to slow down as quickly as possible while at the same time maneuvering it steeply up, so that it was almost vertical. He didn’t know how he managed to miss the hovercraft as he looped over it and around to the other side. But once there, he took several deep breaths and matched the rising motion of the vehicle, using it for cover while clutching his stun gun.

When his pursuer nipped around the corner of the building a moment later, he was too low to be directly confronted by the hovercraft, but seemed momentarily confused when he couldn’t spot Yuuri. That was all the advantage Yuuri needed. He took the few seconds he needed for a good steady aim, then fired – and hit his target, the white crackle of electricity enwreathing both the man and his hoverboard. He slumped over, his feet still attached to the metal. With the BCI nonfunctional now that he was unconscious, he began to tumble downward, gaining momentum as he fell.

Yuuri watched for a moment. Then he raced downward on his own board, managing to swing underneath the man, gathering him in his arms with the board still adhering to him. He sank slowly to the ground, depositing his burden on the sidewalk and then frisking through his pockets, looking for a gun. Damn, the jack must have dropped it when he’d been hit. There was no sign of it on the sidewalk, though there were plenty of people who had stopped to gawp.

_This is more than you would’ve done for me, you prick,_ Yuuri thought in exasperation. And before the crowd surrounding him could grow any further – they were calling out questions, asking who he was, what he was doing, what that thing he was standing on was – he rose back up into the air.

He could encounter more of these people chasing him at any point. It was time to make a decision. His thoughts swirled as he continued to hold his stun gun at the ready.

Then an idea struck him. He rose high into the air, higher than the skyscrapers, until he figured he was more or less lost from sight of anyone below. Then he turned northwest and headed back toward the river, hoping his luck held this time when he crossed, as there was noplace here to conceal himself. The Hatch Shell, where he’d attended those lazy lunchtime concerts with Victor, passed down to his left. Then he was crossing the river, flying over MIT again, and nearing Harvard – but diverted just before he reached it, moving east until he was over the nearby railyard. It wasn’t a major hub, but it was the largest one in Boston, servicing the universities and nearby high-tech private labs with the raw materials and components they needed. A couple of freight trains were moving out of the yard now, one going north and the other west. Just what he needed.

He swooped down until he was hovering over one of a dozen or so hopper cars joined to the westbound train. It contained some dark material and had been filled most of the way up, so it shouldn’t be hard to climb out when he needed to, he thought. Not that he knew more than the average person about these things. The hoverboard was just matching the speed and direction of the train, though it still gave uncomfortable jerks. He tucked his stun gun back into his jeans pocket, then bent over and unfastened the clamps that held his feet in place.

It seemed such a shame to have to do this. But unless he could find a way to make the hoverboard untraceable, it was virtually useless to him. There was no time for that, however, and he knew he didn’t have the expertise, let alone the tools. Counting silently to three, he sprang into the hopper, landing on his knees in a pile of black rock, and willed the board to continue on a trajectory off to the north. A moment later, he detached the earpiece, stood as steadily as he could in the shifting material underfoot, and threw it over the side of the train.

He was on his way out of Boston. No chip; and if he was lucky, no further pursuit. For now. He knew it was foolish to hope they’d give up so easily.

For a moment he simply stood, swaying along with the hopper, listening to the rhythmic click-clack of the train as scraps of white cloud passed overhead. Then he looked down. What was this black rock? It had smeared his jeans and hands. He picked up a piece. Coal…? Why would anyone be shipping coal, when power was no longer generated by incineration? Well, large-scale power, that was. There were people living in old homes in rural areas who still liked building fires made of coal and wood, just to sit in front of on a winter’s evening. He couldn’t have chosen a dirtier material to land himself in, though.

The adrenaline was draining out of him now, leaving his limbs leaden, sapping the remaining strength he possessed. It would be so easy just to pretend last night and today hadn’t occurred. He was Dr. Yuuri Katsuki, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at MIT. He shared an office with Phichit Chulanont. Had an apartment in Eagle Hill. Was…had been…

_Victor._

Tears welled in his eyes. There was nothing left to stop the full reality from demanding acknowledgement. Ripping his heart into pieces. That beautiful, beloved face, with its frame of soft light hair. Eyes that put to shame the color of the sky on the most brilliant summer’s day. A smile that could warm the hardest of hearts. And all… _all_ of it, a deception. There was some steadfast part of him that still refused to believe it; that would probably remain in denial until the last star in the heavens burned out. But who wanted to admit, even to themselves, that they’d naïvely trusted someone who had turned around and flayed them? Better, easier, to hope – wish – there’d been some mistake.

Shaking with quiet sobs, he reached into the left-hand pocket of his jeans and pulled out two packets of lube he’d stashed there just the day before. A foolish young man wandering into the lion’s den.

_Victor. How could you do this to me. Make me…make me love you. You did it so completely. I never suspected for a moment._

They’d probably been laughing, those people in the shadows, as they’d been listening. To it all. Not just the night before. Could maybe quote his most intimate words back at him; words that had been meant for Victor alone.

With an angry cry, he tossed the packets over the side of the hopper. Then pulled his backpack off and waded through the sooty black mess until he reached a corner, where he sank down against the cold metal. He hugged his backpack to himself, resting his chin on the top, and tucked his knees up. The familiar black tendrils reached out of his abdomen and crept and clawed through his veins until it felt like each one had imbued the poison. He began to shake, his breaths coming in little gasps through a tight throat. Whimpers escaped his lips. Doom, doom was coming, on wings of fear more powerful than anything he had so far experienced in this whole sorry mess. His brain knew it was illogical; he’d surely ditched everyone and everything that had been chasing him. In some tiny corner of his mind, he knew he even ought to be proud of what he’d accomplished; of what he’d learned he could do.

But none of it mattered. Because he’d lost everything. _Everything._

He shivered and cried until the exhaustion grew more powerful still; and then he knew no more.

***

He was pulled back up from the well of unconsciousness by something touching his face…a light, irritating tickly feeling. Unglued his eyes and was greeted with raindrops pinging against them. He rubbed his face, feeling the droplets there. It wasn’t coming down hard, and must have started not long before, as his clothes were mostly dry, though streaked with moisture.

He shifted, chunks of coal clunking and slipping underneath him. The black on his hands transferred itself to everything he touched, and he had a vision of himself with the appearance of a Victorian chimney sweep, the whites of his eyes peering out from a dark mask. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, because the position of the sun relative to him was dependent on the direction in which he was traveling. He’d started out by going west, but who knew where the train had been headed since then. What did people without chips do to tell the time? Simple things like that, he realized, were suddenly going to become troublesome.

Was he imagining it, or was the train slowing down as well? He couldn’t see anything but cloud and sky from his position. There was a metal ladder inside the hopper. Putting on his backpack, he picked his way across the sliding coal, sinking and having to brace himself against it with his palms on a couple of occasions, just to ensure that they really were as coated with the grime as they could be. He climbed up, and once at the top peeked over the rusting edge of the railcar.

It looked like the train was nearing some kind of yard or depot. Skyscrapers were visible through the haze ahead, several kilometers away. The ground was covered in dirt and gravel, crisscrossed with train tracks; and rapidly approaching was a fenced-in area with metal shacks and boxcars. Yuuri realized that if he didn’t get out very soon, he might be trapped; and whatever authorities patroled around here would surely report him.

Feeling adrenaline wrack his weary frame once again, he swung over the edge of the car, clattered down the ladder on the outside, and hung at the bottom, wondering how much the train would have to slow down before it would be safe to jump. He was under no illusions about how dangerous this was, having grown up with safety lessons in school telling him about people who lost their limbs or their lives doing such things. The metal rungs became slippery under his sweating fingers, even though the actual rain had stopped; but he still did not dare let go. The tan-and-white gravel raced past underneath him.

Knowing he had no choice if he wanted to remain undetected, he finally forced himself to release his hold, launching himself into a leap that carried him away from the train. He landed in the gravel, hard, rolling until he was able to stop his momentum.

“Hey there!” came a shout from further down the tracks. Sweat springing onto his brow, he scrambled to his feet and began to sprint, expecting the familiar needle-flash of blue any moment. When it didn’t come, he shot a glance over his shoulder.

The shout, it appeared, had been directed at another young man who had been caught trying to escape from a hopper further up the train. Two policemen had apprehended him. Yuuri suspected that if the other traveler hadn’t been there, the police would have found him instead, and he would be the one now in their custody.

He propelled himself forward and around the corner of a long aluminum-clad shed, pausing to get his breath and his bearings. It looked like he’d arrived at the outer fringes of a city, judging from the downtown area he’d spotted. It was just as well that he’d awakened when he did, because aside from the danger of the police, there were plenty of other potential problems with riding straight into an urban area. If he wanted to remain free, he knew it was best to avoid them.

A battered white sign on the side of a small red-brick hut-like building across from where he stood said “Buffalo Agricultural Equipment, Feed & Seed Corp.” He’d traveled across Massachusetts and New York state, then. At least he’d chosen a good direction. If he’d gone south, he would have quickly ended up in New York City, and no doubt the train would have stopped there, probably while he’d been asleep.

Making sure his backpack was secure, while covering the straps with more smeared black handprints, he jogged off in the direction of a stand of trees fringing fields in the distance. There were no sounds of pursuit, but he nevertheless moved quickly, wanting to put as much distance as he could between himself and the yard. For now, at any rate. With a sinking heart, he knew he would have to return, and find a way to elude the authorities, if he was to continue on his journey.

The hours until sunset passed quickly. There was a creek in among the trees; not knowing how clean it was, he didn’t dare drink from it, but it made him suddenly aware that he was thirsty. After washing his hands in it, he drank dry the cartons of water he had, then ate a little of the food from his backpack. It wasn’t a satisfying meal, but while he was here at a water source he decided to see if he could get himself and his clothing cleaner. He’d never done anything like this before, and wondered if someone would spot him. It seemed to be secluded enough here, though, away from any buildings and sheltered by the trees. He removed his coal-blackened clothes, left them in a pile at the side of the creek, removed his bar of soap in its traveling case from a pocket in his backpack, and entered the water. It was warm and clear, bubbling over a rocky bed. It almost felt like the taint of the day was draining away from him, to be absorbed and carried away. Almost.

Having cleaned himself, he grabbed his jeans first and dunked them in the water again and again, alternating this with running the soap over them. It probably made a ridiculous sight, he reckoned, but what else could he do? You either threw your clothes into your own washing machine, or you ordered a drone to take them away to be cleaned for you, neither of which was an option here.

The results weren’t perfect, but they were passable, he decided. But here was the next problem: he couldn’t walk around in wet clothes – well, not comfortably or presentably; he couldn’t stuff them into his backpack; and if he hung them out to dry, he’d be sitting nearby, waiting, for an hour or more. It wasn’t the ideal time of day for this – and what would he hang them on, anyway?

How did people actually live in the old days without all the mod cons he’d grown up with? Well, they had equipment he didn’t have access to. And hunter-gatherers probably didn’t worry too much about cleaning coal stains from their deerskin clothing.

He pulled on a spare pair of jeans and underwear and a maroon T-shirt. He’d even washed his tennis shoes. These he sat out to dry under the westering sun, and he found some tree branches he used to construct a crude frame from which to hang his clothes.

At first he tried sitting and waiting, but it was like watching grass grow or a pot coming to the boil. And the longer he idled, the darker his thoughts grew, until the oily blackness that always lay in wait deep inside began to stir. He could leave his clothes here for now easily enough – and in the unlikely event that someone happened by and stole them? He still had the ones he was wearing. If he wanted to maintain some kind of composure, he knew he needed to be actively doing something.

He’d caught sight earlier of what looked like a cluster of stores maybe a kilometer away, surrounded by houses, with farmland on the edges. He pulled on his wet shoes and socks and made his way there across fields and over gates dividing fences, keeping a mental note of the route.

It was a strangely rural area for as close as it was to a major city; perhaps one of the last before the suburbs proper began. There was a diner here, a grocery-cum-hardware store, two silos, and a building that proclaimed itself Stanley Elementary School. Deciding a hot meal would be welcome, he visited the diner. This wasn’t a place that had invested in tech, that much was clear. You seated yourself when you came in, and ordered via a screen at your table, though there were a couple of human beings here to bring your food or take a manual order if you had any questions. When a middle-aged woman in jeans and a white T-shirt entered the eating area to serve other customers, Yuuri called her over when she was done and asked whether they would accept cash as payment. She looked at him as if he’d arrived from Mars, but went out back to check with the manager, only to return to inform him that sorry, they didn’t; not many people wanted to pay that way anymore, so it would cost them more to handle the cash than they’d receive in revenue. However, they were short-staffed at the moment, so if he had a couple of hours to spare, he could wash some dishes and make up the bill that way. It wasn’t the most appealing offer, but what else was there for him to dash away and do? It wasn’t as if he had grad student papers to mark, lessons to plan, people to see. Suddenly he felt sick.

Sick, but still hungry. He ended up eating a plate of bacon, eggs and sausage, with veg on the side that had probably come from a frozen packet but served the purpose. He washed it all down with plenty of ice water, filled up his empty cartons, and quietly got stuck into the hot, greasy work they gave him in the kitchen. No one was in the mood for conversation, it seemed, which suited him fine. He asked at one point if there was a Cloud café around, but they didn’t know what one of those was. Did they know anything about where the trains went from the nearby rail yard? No. He decided he would circle to the west the following day, well past the fenced-in area where he’d seen the police, and find someplace to try his luck before the train was traveling too quickly. The thought of it sent a dart of apprehension through him. And for all he knew, he’d end up in Canada. Offline communities were illegal there, too. It was California or bust, it seemed. Just a few months away from being a forty-niner, he realized with a sudden prickle of dark amusement – two hundred years too late, granted. Not that their lives had been any easier.

Saying quick goodbyes, he exited the diner under white street lights and visited the little store next door – discovering with relief that after some debate, they were willing to take his money – and bought a flashlight and more dried food and water. Then he made his way slowly through the dark back to the creek, eventually coming across the drying frame with his clothes still draped over it. At least the days were warm and the nights just on the cool side; he put on his coat, propped himself against a tree trunk, pulled his blanket over himself, and stared at the stars peeking through the canopy overhead. A soft breeze ruffled through his hair. It didn’t take him long to learn that his back and butt would not thank him for remaining in this position, however, and eventually he stretched himself across the hard weedy ground.

His sleep was fitful, punctuated by panic-filled dreams in which he constantly fled from some unnamed horror always just behind him, that he could never turn and face. There was no comfort to be found as he tossed and turned on the ground, though sheer exhaustion ensured that he got some small snatches of light sleep. As the first rays of the dawn awoke him, he sat up to discover he was damp, cold and sore.

_I can’t believe I’m here, and not in bed in my apartment. I can’t believe it all happened._

Somehow it had still not sunk in yet. Well, sooner or later it would have to.

His backpack, containing all his money and possessions as it did, had served as a pillow, albeit a lumpy and uncomfortable one. He ate some of his dried food, drank some water, packed the clothes he’d cleaned the day before, put his backpack on, and, his mind too numb for deep thought, began the walk back to the rail yard.


	26. Chapter 26

One he spotted the rail cars, he walked at a safe distance where he was unlikely to be seen, and then approached several sets of westbound tracks around a bend, where there were tin shacks and trees for cover.

He soon discovered he wasn’t the only one with the intention of hopping a freight train today. There was a crowd of a dozen people or more, mostly young men, idling. Many were wearing jeans and T-shirts, with backpacks, like himself. A few wore fashionable Chinese-style clothing. Some had wild hair flowing over their shoulders, and beards to match. Others wore cowboy hats – Stetsons, Yuuri thought they were called; or baseball caps, their hair cropped short. The majority were leaning against the shacks, smoking cigarettes and looking at the ground, then occasionally at the tracks. Intermittent coughs broke the silence; there was little conversation.

Yuuri approached a man about his age with a mass of golden curls flattened by a tan Stetson, flicking the ashes from his cigarette. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Waitin’ for a train. Ain’t that why you’re here too?”

“Yeah. It’s just…a lot of people.”

The man shrugged. “That’s what you get near a big city. You can’t of been doin’ this long if you think this is a lot of people.”

“Why so many?”

He eyed Yuuri uncomprehendingly. “Most of ’em’s lookin’ for work.”

There was a pause. “Are you?”

Another pause. “No. I do this for fun. Best way of gettin’ around there is.”

Yuuri thought of the hoverboard he’d ridden over the skyscrapers of Boston the day before, but remained silent. “Do you know when the next train’s coming?”

“They don’t allus run on time, but this one’s due at eight-oh-five. Just about now,” he added, glancing down at his wrist. Yuuri saw he was wearing a watch there.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked in surprise.

“You ask a lot of questions,” he laughed. “Antique store, where else?”

“You’re not chipped?”

“Never have been, never will be.”

“You’re smarter than me, then,” Yuuri mumbled under his breath.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“Never mind. Is it OK to catch a train here? It won’t be going too fast?”

“Seems to be the general opinion of these here jacks, so I’m game if you are.”

Yuuri didn’t feel “game” for anything, but decided to watch what the others did and copy them if it looked safe enough.

He leaned silently against a nearby shed, the blond cowboy-looking man next to him. He offered Yuuri a cigarette, which he declined. A few minutes later, the chug-chug of a train sounded in the distance, and the mass of idlers woke to wary life, edging toward the tracks, spreading out.

The engine appeared, and then a trail of brick-red boxcars. Everyone broke into a run alongside the train, Yuuri joining in. He spotted several black silhouettes out of the corner of his eye, coming toward them from the east about as fast as the train.

“Watch them bulls!” someone shouted in warning, just before the white electric webs of stun guns erupted around them. A couple of men fell to the ground, perilously close to the tracks.

“Get away from the train!” came the voices of several policemen as more electricity arced out. “You are engaged in dangerous criminal activity! Repeat – get away from the train!”

“C’mon, oogle!” the blond man called to Yuuri, hopping up to a boxcar and holding a hand out. “You comin’ or not?”

Yuuri grabbed it and hopped up after him, collapsing prone onto the bare wooden planks of the car. He breathed in the scents of pine and dust, wondering if there was a way he’d never again have to do what he’d just done. If people hadn’t been injured or killed trying to get on the train, then surely being stunned by the police in the process wasn’t a better alternative, especially if they had no control over where they landed. He panted out several breaths, his cheek resting against the cool shaded wood.

“Jesus H. Christ on a bike!” the blond man whooped with glee as the train picked up speed. “Sha- _zam_!”

Yuuri lay still and closed his eyes.

“Hey, fella, you OK?”

_No._ “Yeah. Just gimme a minute.”

Eventually he pulled himself up and scooted over to a wall he could lean against, removing his backpack and placing it on the floor between his legs, draping his arms over the top of it. The other man was standing in the large gap formed by the open doors, smoking another cigarette and watching the scenery go by. They were turning southward now, and appeared to be bypassing Buffalo altogether, for which Yuuri was thankful. He sat quietly, wondering how long he’d be stuck in here with this jack. At least if they were going west, it was the ideal direction for now, since Lake Erie would prevent them from turning north.

He was considering whether it would be prudent to ask the jack more questions, since he seemed to be used to this existence, when he saw him sit down and take a black object about the size of a shoebox from his backpack, along with a screwdriver. Yuuri watched with quiet interest as he removed the backing, then poked around at a bundle of wires inside. This went on for about ten minutes. He didn’t appear to be making any progress with whatever he was doing.

Yuuri stood and walked across the car. Strange how it was mostly empty, though he knew little about trains in general, let alone freight trains or how they operated. There were some piles of what looked like straw against the far wall, along with a few empty burlap sacks and pieces of rope lying strewn around. He approached the man and crouched down next to him, keeping some distance between them, but close enough so that he could look over and get an idea of what he was doing. Though it still wasn’t obvious. Fields of corn and wheat, farms, lakes and trees went steadily past outside.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Huh? Radio.”

“Really? I haven’t seen one of those outside of a museum.”

“Well, have a good ol’ look then, ’cause that’s all you’re gonna get. I been tryin’ to make it work but it ain’t no good.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “How would you know if it _was_ working? All the stations are digital and go through the chip.”

He looked at Yuuri in surprise. “No they ain’t, and no they don’t.”

“You mean there are people out there broadcasting on an analog signal? But who listens?”

“You really are an oogle, aintcha?”

“What’s that?”

“Sorry. It ain’t a nice thing to call somebody. You’re just so green, is all. It’s a jack who ain’t hopped a train before.”

“Well that’s true enough.”

“Good thing you got me to tell you what to do, then.” He suddenly held a large hand out. “Saratoga Steve.”

Yuuri shook it tentatively, then let it drop. “That’s your, uh, handle?”

“Sure. You ain’t made up one for yourself yet?”

“No…though maybe I should. I can’t go around giving my real name to people. I…”

Saratoga Steve just nodded. “I knew you wasn’t no rail king or nothin’, soon’s you opened your mouth. You set on bein’ one, or are you just on the run or somethin’?”

Yuuri saw no reason to lie. “I’m on the run. But I’m not a criminal. Anyway, what’s a rail king? You mean a hobo?”

“Yeah. Though I tell you what – most people don’t like bein’ called that. It’s, you know, disrespectful. And, well…” Steve added, tinkering with the screwdriver and the wires again, “…we’re both criminals now, ’cause train hoppin’s illegal. If you didn’t know afore, them bulls back at the rail yard shoulda been enough of a hint.”

“Bulls…rail yard police.”

Steve pointed the screwdriver at him. “You ain’t so niff after all.” Then he got back to work.

“I could have a look at that, if you want,” Yuuri decided to offer. “Maybe I could do something with it.”

“You got a little technological expertise, huh?”

Yuuri smiled. “A little. I might have some better tools, too.” He got up, went over to his backpack and brought it over, digging out his toolkit. He hadn’t consciously packed it, in his hurry to transfer all the contents from his carryall, but it was a bit of luck that he’d ended up with it all the same. Steve handed the radio over as Yuuri sat down. He chose a sonic screwdriver and a tiny pocket laser, though first he poked around the inner workings to get an idea of what he had in front of him. The laser emitted a familiar blue light that he thought might cause his stomach to flip unpleasantly every time he saw it for the rest of his life.

“Whoa cow, that’s some flink shit you got there,” Steve enthused as he watched.

_MIT’s finest._ A ghost of a grin played across Yuuri’s lips. Since making the adjustments to the equipment in the lab so that it could be used with the unchipped volunteers for the study, he was more familiar with the workings of outdated tech like this, and soon he felt he understood how it operated and what he could do to fix it. After a few minutes, during which Steve looked on in wide-eyed fascination, he turned the wheel on the side of the black box with his thumb. There was a click, and then steady static, which rose in volume until he took his fingers away.

“Someone put a magnetic coil in this at some point,” Yuuri said as he stashed his toolkit away. “So it doesn’t need the old-fashioned batteries it was designed to use. But it seems to have been pretty badly beaten up over the years. Wires just needed some adjusting and fusing. I think. It’s not picking anything up but static. Should we try this?” He pulled on a silver ball at the top of the box, and extended an antenna about half a meter in length. “Wait,” he said with sudden interest, “can you hear someone?”

“Lemme see,” Steve said, taking it back. “You gotta tune it.” He moved a dial, and a vertical red line shifted back and forth across a manual numbered display. The static blared and crackled – and then the boxcar was filled with music. It sounded watery, like it was coming from a long way away, but it was loud and recognizable. Country and western.

“Hey, amigo, shazam! Nice work.”

Yuuri laughed. “You think it was worth repairing that just to listen to Johnny Cash?”

“You can listen to all kinds of things. Music, talk radio. None of these people’s chipped. It’s all free, jack. Free as a bird. Like us. There’s broadcasts for retro fans. Lots of oldies. Radicals and politicals out there too, givin’ the truth, not that bullshit people get from the Cloud. Though yeah, ’round here if you wanna listen to music, you’re mainly gonna find country and western, or country rock or somethin’. It ain’t bad, though. I can’t believe I got one of these workin’ again. Thanks, fella – hey, you didn’t say what I should call you. You ain’t gonna go around bein’ a John Doe or somethin’, are ya?”

Yuuri thought. “John’s all right. Maybe that’ll do.”

 “OK, John. Nice to meetcha.”

They sat and watched the landscape roll by. It was relatively flat here. There were gray-bellied thunderheads in the distance with black streaks of rain arcing out of them and slanting in the wind before reaching land. They passed wind and solar farms. Occasionally they were spotted by fruit pickers or people on tractors, or the odd pedestrian walking along a nearby road. They received stares of surprise and outrage, though sometimes they were greeted with cheers and whistles – in which case Steve shot up to his feet, tore his hat off, and whistled back, his rich laughter filling the boxcar.

He seemed to be enjoying himself, Yuuri thought. “How long have you been…uh, a rail king?” he asked after Steve boisterously exchanged greetings with a man passing on a bicycle.

“’Bout a year now,” Steve answered as he sat back down. “Beats what I was doin’ before, I can tell ya. Sometimes there’s lots of us all together, and then…whoo-ee, we have ourselves a good time. Though…” He took a flask from his backpack. “…most people doin’ this is lookin’ for work, like I tol’ ya.” He unscrewed the lid from the flask, took a glug, and handed it to Yuuri, who accepted it dubiously. “I ain’t tryin’ to poison ya or nothin’. It’s Jack Daniel’s.”

Yuuri took a sip to be polite, then passed the flask back. The alcohol lit a flame down his throat. “Don’t you have to, I don’t know, do things to make money? How do you live like this?”

“One day at a time, amigo.” He took another gulp. “One day at a time. You can pick up the odd job if you need to, here an’ there, though there ain’t so many as there used to be, years back. Sometimes you can beg for a meal. There’s a whole system of signs you can leave for when other jacks come along, to let ’em know about places they can go that’s friendly.”

“Don’t you…get lonely?”

Steve stared at him. “Nah. It’s good.”

They sat quietly, shared the remaining contents of the flask, and watched the world go by. The radio played Garth Brooks, Carlos Rodriguez and Carrie Underwood, and other singers Yuuri didn’t recognize. Then “Ramblin’ Man” by the Allman Brothers came on. Yuuri thought, as he sat near the door, the warm wind in his hair, the train rolling along, that maybe, just maybe, he could see an appeal to living like this. He nodded his head and tapped his fingers on the wood as he listened to the music. It was good for traveling. Good for dancing to, even, if he’d been in the mood. Though he wasn’t sure when he would be again.

“Do you know where this train’s headed?” Yuuri asked.

“West. Chicago, eventually. It’ll stop there if it don’t stop beforehand. You’ll wanna get off afore the bulls spot you. Where you headed?”

“California.”

Steve whistled. “A ways to go, then.”

“Yeah. How about you?”

“Oh, I just ride around. If you wanna find out about a particklar train, you can look ’em up in a Cloud café, if there’s one nearby. Or you learn how to make discreet inquiries with staff in rail yards. Though it’s usually best to pretend you’re a student or somethin’.”

“Can you get printed timetables anywhere?”

Steve guffawed. “Good luck with that. Only if you write ’em down. Country ain’t made for people with no chip, jack.”

“I noticed.” An idea struck him. “Why don’t you go to California, too? It’s supposed to be better there. Offline communities – ”

He shook his head. “Grass is allus greener, jack. This here’s my home, an’ I’m doin’ OK.”

They sat listening to the music. Steve seemed to get bored eventually and tuned to different stations. One was broadcasting a fire-and-brimstone sermon. Another featured a rant of a different kind, about the surveillance state and how chips were the government’s tool to enslave everyone. A few days ago, Yuuri would have dismissed the broadcaster as a crank. Now he sat up and listened, though it was nothing he hadn’t already found out the hard way. Eventually they settled on listening to an amateur broadcast of a baseball game, the Reds vs. the Phillies. Yuuri was curious to know how the individual was managing to do this if they were sitting in the audience at the stadium, which was indeed the case if the sounds of the organ playing and vendors shouting “Cold beer here” were any indication.

“Hey,” Steve said, and his voice jolted Yuuri, who had been lulled by the game and the rhythmic clacking of the train. “You’re kinda cute. Do you wanna…you know…” He tilted his head toward the interior of the boxcar. “…for a while? Just to pass the time? Wouldn’t mean nothin’, you understand.”

It took Yuuri a moment to work out what he meant. Then he had to force his eyes not to shoot open wide. He glanced at Steve, then looked down with a small grin, hoping he’d get the message without him having to spell it out. In other circumstances, he might have been curious and excited, he realized. But since Victor…well, he hadn’t even had a chance to work out how he felt about that. His mind told him they were finished; that they _had_ to be, because Victor had seduced him and then thrown him to the wolves. And here he was, speeding away in the opposite direction. But his own heart, he knew, was still foolish and traitorous. That would have to change, but it was going to take a while, and the last thing he needed now was more complications.

“Suit yourself. You interested in havin’ a cigarette, anyways?”

Yuuri gave him a more genuine smile. “Sure,” he said, to be polite, and took it, allowing Steve to light it for him. It had been years since he’d smoked one of these. He wasn’t any fonder of the burn in his throat or the smell, but it gave him something to do. As did Steve, when he started telling him about growing up on an Iowa farm with an alcoholic father. How he’d never had any ideas in his head about what he wanted to do with his life other than get away and see the world. Which was what he was doing now. And he had a few stories to tell about that. Yuuri listened, mostly in silence, making attentive noises now and again. Steve seemed content with this. He had a lot to say, Yuuri reckoned, for someone who insisted he wasn’t lonely. And his heart went out to him – as it did for all the people in this country without chips, or without jobs, who’d been allowed to fall through the cracks in the system and were scraping together a living as best they could, with whatever means were available to them.

It was not particularly comforting to know that he was one of them now.

***

They parted ways south of Chicago, when the train pulled into a set of side tracks, stopping to allow another train traveling in the opposite direction to pass. Yuuri had asked Steve if he wanted to come further west with him, but he said he was planning to meet some fellow rail kings in Lousiville, if they could swing it. And anyway, if Yuuri wanted to go to California, he was probably better off turning south to St. Louis from here – though California was a big country, and whereabouts there was he going? Yuuri hadn’t thought that far ahead, but “south” had an appeal, if for no other reason than he’d had a memorable experience there on vacation, a long time ago. Get down to Dallas, then, Steve said. Albuquerque. Phoenix. Find Cloud cafés and rail yard officials, get timetables. Try to find out where trains stopped for crew changes. Don’t ever just waltz into a rail yard or let the bulls see you – but he knew that by now, right?

Yuuri had been wondering what to do to say thanks for the company and the information. He doubted Steve had much, if any, money on him. But Steve wasn’t a beggar, and Yuuri didn’t want to make him feel like one. In the end he simply asked if he needed any cash to get by on for a while. Steve just shook his head, said Yuuri would need to hang on to it in his oogle days, and good luck finding what he was after. Then he strode away down a dirt road, his denim-clad Stetson-topped figure with its olive-green backpack visible until he turned a tree-lined corner. Yuuri felt an odd drop in his stomach as he watched him disappear.

He came to see, in the days that followed, what a lucky start he’d had to his journey. He’d traveled a good distance in safe and friendly company, the weather being amenable. At least when you were in a boxcar, the wind and the rain could be blowing outside and it wouldn’t touch you. Off the train, however, it was a different story. Due to the necessity of avoiding rail yards, Yuuri often found himself in deeply rural areas where there were no places to stay apart from what the landscape provided – trees, ditches, the occasional barn. He was tempted to look for a store where he could buy a tent, if they would take his money, but decided the extra bulk to carry would be inconvenient at best and life-threatening at worst, when he was trying to hop a train. A few times while he was sleeping outside, he’d been awakened by rain. Being dripping wet with nowhere to go at three a.m. in the midst of some trees or a cliff, with nothing around but fields or grazing land, was not something he’d ever looked forward to experiencing, with good reason.

At least he’d packed what little tech he owned in a watertight bag. Not that it really mattered. His biochem monitor was useless now that he didn’t have a chip. Though he could guess well enough what his neurotransmitter and hormone levels and so on were. Adrenaline constantly high, either from traveling or the stress of boredom while he sat in rail cars or out in a field, mixed with sleep deprivation from nightmares and the hard ground. He’d taken to building nest-like areas with twigs and leaves and other woodland debris, though as time went by the desire to make the effort to do so ebbed away. One day blurred into another; and while he met some unusual people, most of whom wouldn’t have been out of place at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, he met no one else who only seemed to want to offer simple honest companionship for a while. Everyone had an agenda or their own issues, and most either wanted to keep it to themselves or were incapable of sharing. A seemingly disproportionate number of boxcar riders and idlers near the rail yards, Yuuri discovered, had some kind of mental illness – not in the “mistaken ESP” sense, but in the real sense of being lost in their own worlds, unable to form coherent sentences, seeing or hearing things that weren’t there. Some were drug addicts. Many were criminals; or at least that was the implication, from the way they behaved and the stories Yuuri sometimes heard. He kept his backpack close to him at all times, his stun gun in his pocket. Fortunately, though, he did not find occasion to use it. Because the majority of the other travelers, as Steve had explained, were just young men migrating from one place to the next hoping to find work, with no interest other than getting from A to B and then quickly disappearing once they did.

In the midst of these quiet waves of humanity surging around the country, there were rumors of a kind of royal hierarchy. Kings – and queens – of the rails, as Steve had said. Yuuri met a few, though he had little to say to them himself, and usually they had a knack for turning up amid crowds of other travelers who would fete them and hang on their every word. There was Boxcar Charlie, Slow Motion Jones – who had nearly been run over once when attempting to hop a fast-moving train, Lois Ladyfinger, The Chamberlain, and Three Bean Ollie. They made it sound like a romance, the great never-ending American cross-country trip. Drank liquor, shared around a joint, played the harmonica, sang. Yuuri found himself lingering on the sides and in the shadows when in such company, having found one person with a radio preferable to what sometimes seemed to amount to a traveling show. He saw bulls near the rail yards catch a few more people, but always seemed to manage to stay a step ahead himself, and was thankful he’d chosen jogging as his main form of exercise.

He’d gotten as far as Little Rock, Arkansas before the train he was on took a sudden turn to the north; and he’d ended up in the middle of Kansas before he’d been able to get off. At least he’d come across a town there with a Cloud café, where he could look up train timetables, and a motel that accepted cash, which meant he’d slept in a bed that night for the first time in days. Taking a shower was heavenly, and he sent his clothing off with a drone to get a thorough wash while he lounged on the sheets, barely able to keep his eyes open. He could stay here…stay here and rest.

_Until my money runs out. Or they track me down._

There was no telling how close they were. He saw no signs of pursuit, but he knew that could be the case up to the point where they were ready to apprehend him. He was no expert in eluding people who had a legal spy network, though he knew the chip wasn’t the only method they used. It was impossible to know where all their cameras were, or who would be willing to report him if they thought he looked suspicious. He took what precautions he could, however. “John Smith” was his name when required. With his Japanese appearance, he figured it might raise a question or two; but perhaps it would also quell an equal share, since it was the sort of name that indicated he wanted to be left alone.

The second precaution he took was knocking out surveillance cameras with his ESP wherever he spotted them; and he’d trained himself to look for them as soon as he entered a building. It was worrying that he hadn’t thought of this immediately, but better late than never, he reckoned. It took a moment’s concentration while he stayed out of the line of sight; then he focused on sending a ball of energy from his solar plexus region, and sometimes the results were satisfyingly spectacular, with little sparks flying. Why had he never thought to try this during his experiments in his apartment? All that time – all those years – when he believed the ESP had no purpose other than contacting other people, and in a vague way at that.

_I didn’t have any other need for it, though. Not like now._

He had initially felt a twinge of guilt at spreading such destruction, knowing the owners of the businesses and buildings would be footing the bill for repairs. But it quickly disappeared when he thought about the morality of turning all those cameras on people in the first place. Maybe it could be justified if the information didn’t go any further; but no doubt the government was interested in it for their own purposes. And if a camera somewhere happened to recognize his face…? Reason enough to continue to practice and hone this particular skill. Though not all cameras could be seen, and most were deliberately concealed. He continued to avoid large cities and towns, and kept to shadows and side streets, never walking openly down a major road. In a clothing shop that would accept cash, he got a broad-brimmed chocolate-colored hat with a flat top and a little gray-and-black feather sticking out of the side, and wore it from that point onward for the dual purpose of better concealing his face as well as protecting his head from the sun when he had to walk long distances or wait hours for a train. He also picked up a pair of dark sunglasses. None of these items would enable him to avoid facial recognition tech, but they might at least prevent a human being from matching him to a photo and reporting his identity to the authorities.

It was all new. Taxing. Exhausting. It felt like his brain was ever-churning, trying to identify ways he could continue to evade pursuit, while at the same time wondering where his next bed and meal would come from. Some trains ran through the night, he knew; and some people tried to hop them then, as they were less likely to be spotted. They were also more likely to be killed. If there was one thing Yuuri seemed to have plenty of, it was time, and he decided it was safer to get off where he could before the dark of night.

He’d found a huge antique hall in the Ozarks where he’d been able to buy a working wristwatch, which was handy not only for the purpose of telling the time but also because it seemed to be an instant notification to people that you were unchipped, which made them less likely to ask why you wanted to pay for things in cash. To his disappointment, he’d not been able to find a radio in the hall, but he got a couple of books to read and a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time with. He also started carrying cigarettes and a flask of brandy, not because he was keen to dip into them himself, but because he’d discovered they could go a long way toward pacifying a fellow train-hopper whose car you suddenly found yourself joining without their invitation. With a little extra cash, such things could also oil the wheels when trying to get information about timetables from railway officials, though Yuuri knew that people like Victor were always going to be far more talented than him at such endeavors.

_Victor._ And here he was, still thinking about him. The memories always seemed to be immediately to hand, ready to come to the fore during moments of idle thought. Yuuri tried to avoid those, though they easily crept up on him.

One scorching afternoon somewhere in central Texas, when the air was so hot and humid that Yuuri’s T-shirt was soaked with sweat and each breath of air seemed to deliver water rather than oxygen, he hopped a train and was pleased to find he had a car to himself – until he went inside and realized it didn’t have a bottom, and the platform outside on which he’d landed was barely large enough to sit on. By this time, the train was rapidly gathering speed, and there was nothing for it but to hold on tight and be alert, because if he stopped paying attention even for an instant…

The trouble was, he’d spent a few more nights sleeping rough, and his brain was foggy. The car rocked and swayed, the clack-clack a lulling rhythm. He needed a radio…a companion… _something_ to help him stay awake for what could end up being hours. A shiver passed through him. Jesus, how could he have done something so utterly niff?

He clung to a beam on the side of the car, watched the rails race by below, and let out a whimper. This really was the last straw. He’d never asked for any of this. Never caused any trouble, never hurt anybody. Why couldn’t he just have his old life back? He’d been avoiding too much thought about this new one he found himself in, because he couldn’t see how it would be anything other than a constant struggle for survival.

_You wouldn’t be the only one in that position, Yuuri Katsuki. Welcome to the real world._

He hung his head, tears dripping down and through the hollow underbelly of the railcar.

_I just want to be with Victor. In his arms._

In that moment, it didn’t matter what Victor had done. What lies he’d told, what truths he’d concealed. Yuuri remembered how safe and loved he’d felt in his embrace. If it had been an illusion, it had still felt good. So very, very wonderful.

He carefully removed his backpack, keeping one shoulder strap hooked around an arm so that there was no danger of dropping it, and dug through until he found a tablet. This was the first time he’d turned it on since he’d called Phichit in Boston. There were a couple of video messages from him, the screen indicated. Some voice messages from MIT, no doubt wondering where he’d gone and why he hadn’t turned up for work. And…Victor. There were – Jesus, there were eight video messages from him. All he would have to do was press the icon on the screen. Tablet messaging services were accessed differently from normal calls, and as far as Yuuri was aware, it would be difficult to trace anyone who was simply playing one back. He could. He _could._ But…did that mean he should?

More tears dripped, mingling with the sweat rolling off his face. He stood still. And thought.

Then erased every message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Ramblin’ Man”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VxoXn-0Ezs) by the Allman Brothers Band


	27. Chapter 27

_[Help…what’s happening?]_

Yuuri jerked his head up and clutched at the beam, realizing his fingers had been uncurling, falling free. Fucking hell – he’d been nodding off.

_[Help!!]_

_Of all times. Not now. Please, god, not now._

There was no way he was in a position to deal with this.

And yet…he’d never turned them away. Not one, not ever. Because he knew what it was like; how terrified and alone it could make you feel. If they’d tried to contact him in the past when he’d been driving, he’d pulled the car over. If he’d been lecturing, he set a task for his students to work on and excused himself from the hall. There had never been a good enough reason to say no and turn his back on someone who needed him like that.

Besides…they might well have just saved his life.

He took a deep breath and expelled it. Then another.

_[It’s OK. I’m here, and I’m going to help you.]_

***

Mercifully, the train stopped about an hour later for a crew change. Yuuri had never been so glad to be standing on solid, unmoving ground in his life. When the steamy air built up into black rumbling thunderheads, he found shelter in a barn, where he dozed on top of some hay bales, vaguely aware of hail pelting the building and then rain cascading down. Sometime in the evening he felt awake enough to get up and explore, the area in and around the barn fresh with the petrichor scent of well-moistened land that had lain dry and parched. He found a water pump, drank his fill, then restocked the cartons in his backpack and headed out to the next podunk town with its diner, general store, and residents who predictably had never met anyone who was unchipped and were wary of him and his paper money and coins. He was in luck, though, as there was a little bed-and-breakfast place that accepted him for the night, which also meant he could have a bath and a couple of hot meals. He was sticking more or less to the paleo foods he was used to, which fortunately wasn’t difficult; though when you were surviving on things like jerky and dried fruit, it didn’t go far. Cheese had turned out to be the most filling portable food he’d found; but in these temperatures, it would just melt into a mess in his backpack.

Another day, another train. And still another, near Albuquerque, that according to the Cloud café he’d visited led almost to the border with Mexico before turning west and back north to Phoenix. This one he boarded while it was stationary outside a rail yard along with a sizeable group of people that was more heterogeneous than he was used to; mixed in with the usual young migrant workers and thrill-seekers were older people, even families with children. When he sat on the floor of a crowded boxcar next to the mother of two young boys, making small talk and asking her where she was headed, she said an offline community in California, as were many of the others here. Life without a chip in the U.S. was hard, despite the supposed freedom it gave you. Like the song said, “freedom” was just another word for “nothing left to lose.”

It was the first indication Yuuri had that he was joining refugees in circumstances similar to his own, who were hoping to cross the border to California without getting caught by the immigration authorities. And if so many people were attempting it, it was likely there would be plenty of people there waiting with various means at their disposal to try to put a stop to it. His stomach churned at the prospect of getting caught up with it and then either shot on the spot or bundled on a plane back to face the music in Boston. After all the traveling, all the effort…had it really been less than two weeks since he’d left? It must have been; though time seemed to have a new meaning now, as if he and the life he’d left behind had become streams flowing at different rates. This one was slow and steady…though possibly about to be dammed.

But what could he do? He’d been intending to change trains outside of Phoenix, and ride the rest of the way to California. How naïve. If he instead went on foot, however, it would mean days of trekking across desert and scrub. He wasn’t used to such things; and if he found himself miles from nowhere with no water left…? Yet the same transportation problems he’d faced when leaving Boston presented themselves again. A, he had no chip. B, he couldn’t allow himself to be recognized. Therefore, C, hopping a freight train was probably still the only viable option. Along with all the other people who were going to try their luck at the same time.

Sticking to his original plan, he hopped off the train on the outskirts of Phoenix. There was a surprisingly large Cloud café in the next town; probably, he surmised, because so many other people without chips came here with the same idea as him. He checked train routes and timetables, and looked for offline communities in southern California. It didn’t really matter which one he eventually came upon, as long as it was a safe place for him to stay; but it was as well to know where they were. He made notes with a pencil on a pad of paper he’d been keeping in his backpack. Then he stocked up on food and water – the stores here seemed used to receiving cash – and returned to the perimeter of the rail yard. A bigger crowd of people than he’d seen anywhere else so far was already there waiting for a train. Yuuri couldn’t help but worry again that if there were this many of them, they were going to be sitting ducks. But when he spoke to another man in the crowd, he was told that this was usual. So, with his heart in his mouth, Yuuri jostled his way to a boxcar when the train arrived and hauled himself up, along with more people than he could immediately count. There were yells outside; the zap of stun guns; police ordering the trespassers to halt. He simply found a place for himself against a wall and sat quietly. This car was filled with burlap bags of what might be gravel, though it was difficult to be sure as they were all tied closed. Perhaps fifteen other men who had also successfully gained access to the car either draped themselves over the bags or scattered themselves, each staking a claim to his own space. Some closed their eyes as if drifting off to sleep; some watched the scrub-covered landscape pass by outside; others eyed their fellow denizens of the car warily. No one spoke.

The train clacked over the tracks for a few hours, and Yuuri could feel the anticipation in the air. They must surely be nearing the border. According to the timetable, the train was supposed to carry on straight to San Diego, though Yuuri had no intention of going that far, or setting foot in such a large city. His immediate concern, however, was just getting into the country. Would their luck hold?

“Border police!” someone standing near the door turned to shout.

As the train unexpectedly slowed, there was a sudden furore inside the car as everyone scrambled. Yuuri watched in horror as two men jumped out at a speed that was surely too fast for them to land safely outside. He heard cries and curses from others close enough to watch them go. Soon, however, the train came to a complete halt. Yuuri stood, having removed his stun gun from his backpack and holding it at the ready. He circled around to the fringes of the crowd near the doors.

“Come out with your hands up!” came a loud order from outside. Yuuri could just catch a glimpse of what appeared to be three policemen armed with laser guns, which they were pointing at the boxcar. If there were others raiding cars further in front of or behind them, he couldn’t tell. There was a dirt road running alongside the tracks, where they’d parked their cars.

_How many can I take out in a row? I don’t think I could focus on more than one at a time._

At least he’d had plenty of practice with doing this to cameras. He stared at the gun one of the policeman was holding, and it erupted into sparks. Flicked his gaze to the next and did the same. And the next. The police jumped back with cries of shock, dropping the useless weapons. The men in the boxcar were hardly less surprised.

“They’re unarmed – move, move!” Yuuri shouted.

That was all the encouragement required, and they began leaping out. The policemen gave chase, but without their guns, there was little they could do. Yuuri was among the last to spring out of the car, and when he landed on the ground he saw police further along the train arresting other travelers. More of them might come his way at any moment. He sprinted along the cars, deciding to take a chance and cross the track where two of them were hitched together, so that the train now provided some cover between himself and the police. A few other men had had the same idea. They were all scattering, though most were headed roughly west. Knowing that was the direction where the pursuit would be focused, Yuuri continued to move north as fast as his feet would carry him, hoping to find someplace to hide until the heat was off.

Unfortunately, that was turning out to be difficult. He was in the open desert. Tall cacti pointed out of the hard-packed earth like dark fingers. There were bald scree-covered hills scraping a jagged outline across the sky to the north; he could perhaps head for those.

As he ran, he watched a speck on the western horizon grow slowly larger – a hovercraft, no doubt coming after the refugees who had escaped from the train. It would certainly see him here before long, if it continued in this direction, and he wasn’t exactly camouflaged with his bright blue backpack and maroon T-shirt.

_Fuck. I didn’t come all this way just to be nabbed in the middle of some godforsaken wasteland._

But unless he could suddenly burrow a hole into the ground for himself, he was never going to make it to the hills in time.

Then he spotted a red-brick structure about the height of one of the cacti, and only slightly thicker; it looked a chimney poking out of the ground, with a black-shadowed half-circle aperture in the front. As Yuuri raced up to it, he read an ancient-looking rusting sign fixed to the brickwork: “Ord Mercury Mine.” He peered into the opening but could see little inside. However, he should just be able to fit through. As long as he watched his step, it was the best hope he had for concealment.

Wasting no more time, he climbed in, feeling with his toe for some solid ground before he shifted his weight over. Soon he was entirely inside. It was as well that he’d been careful, however, because this seemed to be some kind of ventilation shaft, and the area where he was standing was little more than a ledge – and how secure it was after the many years it had stood here was anyone’s guess. He rested his hands on the wall of the opening and watched as the hovercraft gradually neared, though it was clear now that its trajectory lay further to the south. There was no sign of any kind of overland pursuit.

As much as he’d come to hate waiting – to catch a train; inside a train; lying awake at night between sunset and managing to get to sleep, he knew it was the only thing he could do. And he couldn’t pass the time by reading a book; not that he’d be able to concentrate on one anyway. He continued to hold his stun gun, keeping an eye out for police. Maybe they knew how to follow the tracks he’d made. Maybe someone with an infrared sensor could pick him up. It was important to stay vigilant just in case.

A couple of hours passed this way, and somehow it felt as exhausting as if he’d been running a race. He sipped at his water, only allowing himself enough to keep his mouth wet; there was no telling how long it would have to last. His mind drifted to the last place he’d known as home. What was Phichit doing right now? The very thought seemed so absurd that he wanted to let out a hoarse laugh. He pictured the office they shared in Building 46. Maybe Victor had been there today. Though without Yuuri’s presence, there was no reason for him to be.

That was when the first real wave of black despair washed over him. All the running, the agitation, the self-preservation…and why? What the fuck was he doing standing in the workings of an old mercury mine in the middle of the Arizona desert? What next? Did it even matter anymore?

He bent over, rested his forehead against the brick, and shook with quiet sobs. But he was being foolish. Crying wasn’t solving anything, though it was guaranteed to make things worse through moisture loss if nothing else.

_Come on, Yuuri. You did something cool back there – you disabled three laser guns in a row. Now take advantage of it._

It would be wise to wait until nightfall before he went out into the open again. But if he stood here much longer with his thoughts rattling endlessly around his brain, he felt he might go crazy. Hopefully enough time had passed that the authorities had given up looking for now; or maybe they’d been content with the haul they’d already made. At any rate, he simply had to get out and move. He tucked his stun gun in his jeans pocket, swung his feet over the edge of the aperture, and began to jog across the desert. The train tracks were maybe half a kilometer to the south; he could see the rough line they cut across the dusty plain. If he continued in that direction with their guidance, he would cross the border soon, and could perhaps find a place further west to catch a train. He remembered from looking at maps in the Cloud café that it was best to continue to hop trains once in California, at least initially, as there were still many miles of empty land to cross. What it would be like trying to do it on foot, he didn’t want to imagine.

He slowed his pace to a walk, and set out under the afternoon sun. The humid air he’d encountered in Texas was long gone; it wasn’t as hot here, but even the gentle breeze desiccated his mouth and nose and throat. Fear began to trickle down his back after a few hours had passed, his water was running low, and there was neither any sign of human habitation nor any indication that a passing train was planning to stop nearby. He decided to risk steering closer to the tracks in order to catch anything passing that did come to a halt. If it didn’t…he had a sudden vision of himself dropping into the dust, defeated at the last, his flesh withering and bones bleaching like the cow skulls he’d seen in desert paintings. And again that wild laugh tried to claw its way out of him. He drank the last of his water and carried on.

Toward sunset, he noticed some faint glints in a valley ahead, and almost collapsed with relief when he realized he’d come upon a tiny settlement. He jogged the rest of the way there, arriving in the dark and buying as many cartons of water from the one store in the place – which seemed to be used to people paying in cash – as it took to assuage his thirst. Then, his appetite returning somewhat after the ordeal of the day, he went to the little café next door and had a hot meal. It seemed almost a shame to take out the cameras in this place – which proclaimed itself Ross Corner, California, pop. 312 – that were possibly no threat to him, but he couldn’t be too careful.

When he asked the proprietor of the café, an elderly man with a deep suntan called Carl, whether he knew anything about the trains passing through, Yuuri found him to be a veritable gold mine of information. It seemed he was often asked these questions by people traveling both west and east, being as close to the border as he was. He drew a rough map in Yuuri’s notepad, indicating where the trains usually slowed to change crew, which was only a few more kilometers to the west. Yuuri bought some beers at the shop and brought them over to the café for the two of them to drink together, surprising himself at how much he relished having a simple conversation with someone who had a little time to spare. There was no motel here, but he made a cushion of sagebrush for himself just outside of the settlement, put his coat and blanket on and slept under the stars, then returned to the café for breakfast. Carl’s wife Hannah served him bacon, eggs, grapefruit, and plenty of water. Feeling more refreshed than he had in days, Yuuri said goodbye and resumed his trek to the west.

Strange how he felt like an old hand at this now, though in reality he hadn’t been doing it long. Once he arrived at the crew change area, he waited for a couple of hours and was then able to hop into an empty boxcar. With a sudden shiver, he wondered if the border patrol had removed all human occupants before it had gotten this far. The evidence was clear to be seen as he cast his eyes around. Empty drink cartons. Paper packets that had contained food. Cigarette butts. A couple of coins that had dropped out of pockets. A jacket tossed into a corner, lost or forgotten. The people who had left these remnants were surely either in custody or out in the desert somewhere, trying to find their way here.

Strange, he thought, to be on this other side of the economic divide. Risking your life just to get into this country, when you could drive right through on a main road if you had a chip. Or take a plane or a passenger train.

As he traveled further west, the scenery gradually became less scrubby, with some stunted trees and grasses appearing. He glanced from time to time at the map he’d carefully drawn in his notebook of this route across southern California and the nearby towns; it was a novelty to have an idea of what the places were called that he saw passing in the distance. Eventually the train crossed a beautiful stretch of mountains the like of which he hadn’t seen on the entire journey, with rippling blue lakes and blankets of pines, and he gave thanks that the desert was well behind him. When the train slowed to a stop near a town that according to his map should be Alpine, Yuuri hopped out, knowing that if he carried on much further he would end up in San Diego.

There was a Cloud café in Alpine, though he didn’t need to sift through the tidbits of information online to discover the whereabouts of the nearest offline community because the desk attendant was able to tell him, when he decided on the off chance to ask. Children of Gaia, she said it was called. Kind of a hippie place, but she’d heard they were friendly. About fifty kilometers away; for Yuuri that would make it a good two days’ journey on foot, possibly three, depending on the route and conditions. But the relief he felt from knowing he could simply get there from here under his own power, without having to risk life and limb to hop a train, was palpable. The landscape was stark, still somewhat arid, but very pleasant; almost Mediterranean in its feel, he thought as he recalled a conference he’d attended in Rome a few years back. Yes, he could walk that distance. When he accessed the Cloud, he found a couple of local maps – and really believed his luck had come in when the attendant saw him start to copy them by hand, only to be told they had a printer/copier. There was of course no need for such a service if you had a chip onto which you could save such information. While it was still the expectation even here in California that people were chipped, he was discovering that the presence of offline communities meant that there was at least an awareness and degree of tolerance of those who weren’t. He wondered what Saratoga Steve would make of it.

That night he had a hot meal, and paid for a bath and bed in a motel that overlooked a lake with gray-blue mountains in the background. If only he could remain here. Though as always, the awareness lurked in the back of his mind that his money would run out eventually. And looming over it all was the question of what he was going to do with his life. He forced the thoughts away while pretending to himself he was on vacation for a night. There was even a 2D television in his room, and he passed the evening watching a baseball game while luxuriating nude in the sheets of a real bed. Being able to drink as much water as he wanted from the faucet was a pure blessing. He sent his clothes off with a drone to be washed, and nibbled from a packet of dried fruit, coconut flakes and almonds. It was practically enough to convince him that everything he needed was right here, and that he was content for now. Although it was only a veneer of security, he allowed himself the comfort of the pretense, knowing it was better than the heavy blackness that facing the truth would dredge up.

As he drowsed, the sobering thought suddenly occurred to him that if he’d somehow been tracked, and received surprise visitors, he had put himself in rather a compromising situation by sending all his clothes away to be cleaned. How had he become so complacent so quickly? He was _not_ on vacation, however tempting it was to imagine otherwise.

It took him a long time to relax after this, and the nightmares came again; but the soft bed encouraged some stretches of undisturbed sleep as well. In the morning he had breakfast in a café and set out for Children of Gaia.

All right, the name was a little disconcerting. But maybe they were an eco-community. There hadn’t been much information on the Cloud. If they could offer him a place to stay and a way to make a living for a while, it was all he needed.

Surely it couldn’t be that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like the song said, “freedom” was just another word for “nothing left to lose.” – see [“Me & Bobby McGee”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw) by Janis Joplin


	28. Chapter 28

He stuck to hiking routes where he could, thankful to have a detailed physical map that showed them. To his surprise, it wasn’t much warmer here than Boston in September, though his surroundings were different enough. Gone were the lush green farms, forests, lakes, rivers and beaches. Away from Alpine, at lower altitudes, the scenery quickly altered. Yuuri found himself amid rolling hills covered in chaparral and sagebrush, with bare patches of honey-colored rock and earth. He passed through occasional stands of pines, mountain mahogany and oak, though more often he saw lone trees twisting out an existence from cracks between boulders. There were streams as well, though thin and trickling; and small ponds surrounded by rocky canyons. Yuuri could swear he’d caught sight of a turkey near one of these; he’d had no idea such creatures lived out here. No less spectacular were a hawk and a vulture he spotted from a path cresting a hill. It began to remind him of hiking in the Berkshires, in the sense of getting away from civilization for a while and losing himself in some wild natural place where he could be at peace. Well, as far as that was possible under the circumstances. And there would be no need to hunt for towns or trains. He had maps. It was a glorious day, warm under the yellow light of the end of summer, with a gentle breeze. Maybe, just maybe, he’d chosen well when he’d decided to come here.

He came upon the town of Ramona by late afternoon. It was larger than he was comfortable with, fearing the presence of more cameras. But he didn’t know what to expect in the offline community, and so decided to allow himself some creature comforts for a little longer. He pulled his hat low over his head, adjusted his sunglasses, kept an eye out for cameras, and avoided main streets as he arrived in the town proper.  

To his surprise, there was an old-fashioned row of coin-operated newspaper stands outside a dollar store. He’d seen them in old photos and movies, but never in real life – or the printed newspapers they sold. For the first time, he seemed to have come across something that was primarily aimed at people without chips. He dropped some quarters into one of the stands and took his copy of _The Ramona Sentinel_ , tucking it under his arm and taking it with him to a coffee shop. He hadn’t been to one of these since he’d left Boston, either. He felt like a vandal when he disabled their camera, but kept telling himself that it was just another little battle in the war he was fighting. Though the metaphor suggested a grandiose kind of drama that felt wrong.

Peppermint tea, and some chocolate mints for a treat. He could almost pretend to himself that the past couple of weeks hadn’t occurred.

According to the _Sentinel_ , there had been large marches across the state in a push for a universal basic income for all citizens. Yuuri knew such things existed in other parts of the world such as Scandinavia, though the idea and its many variants had never garnered enough support in the U.S. to be seriously considered; the country still romanticized the notion of individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and getting along on their own without any help. Though with the best will in the world, that wasn’t always possible, as Yuuri had recently been reminded by his own travails, as well as those of people he’d met along the way. Well, UBI might be a popular move here in California. So popular, in fact, that the numbers of refugees attempting to cross the border would probably grow exponentially. Yuuri shuddered. He’d seen the desperation in the eyes of some of his fellow travelers. A few had ridden outside the railcars, clinging to ladders or sitting or lying on the roofs of covered cars. Maybe if the U.S. could overcome its bread-and-circuses chip culture, which distracted people from the real problems the country faced, as well as the possible solutions, it would be a better place to live.

_Are you done solving everybody’s problems, Yuuri? Because they’re really listening to you, aren’t they? You go tell them what they need to do to create utopia._

He sighed. _All right. I’m one jack, without friends or a job, looking for a safe place to stay. There – Reality 101._

There wasn’t much else of interest in the newspaper for people who didn’t live here, though he found movie listings for a local theater and went to see a holographic one, mainly to pass the time; a science-fiction-cum-romance about astronauts on Mars. Had a bite to eat at a buffet restaurant. Spent the evening in a Cloud café, researching the area and catching up with science news. It was a while before he suddenly stopped to ask himself why he was doing so. Would he ever work as a scientist again?

He brought up MIT’s website and looked at photos taken around the campus and inside Building 46. Then tapped on the faculty pages. There was Dr. Bayar. Phichit. And…Victor, listed as a visiting professor. Yuuri instinctively reached a hand out to touch the screen, before pulling it sharply back. A tear trickled down his cheek.

_Why am I doing this to myself?_

He went back to looking at local information. There were stores scattered around the offline community, so it was obviously not cut off from the outside world. Several sold antiques and retro goods. And Palomar Observatory was about ten kilometers away. It would be good to see it again, even if he didn’t dare go inside for fear of being identified; a place like that was bound to have more than just a cursory security camera at the front door.

The café was quiet at this time of night. There were a handful of people here, including a Latino and some Asians, one of whom looked Japanese. Yuuri didn’t feel so out of place in this country, though he spoke no Spanish, and that was almost as popular here as English, he’d noticed. If you had a chip, you could program it to instantly translate anything in a foreign language, spoken or written – things people said; books; street signs. Like the Friday, you could even choose the voice, unless you preferred to see the material in text in your visual field instead. Yuuri had gotten into the habit with Victor of leaving that facility disabled, as he’d loved hearing the Russian words he occasionally used.

_Victor._

He was going to go crazy at this rate. _Victor isn’t who you thought he was. Get. That. Through. Your. Thick. Skull._

Another night in a motel. Maps out in the morning, over more tea in the coffee shop. It was about seventeen kilometers to the offline community from here, which he could walk in a day, though only if he wanted to arrive tired and disheveled in the evening. Best to split it over two days and take his time. According to his map, he would not come across any more towns after he left Ramona, so when he left the coffee shop he stocked up on supplies and prepared to spend the night in the open, then set out on his way.

_OK. Children of Gaia, here I come. I can do this. I can._

***

Yuuri kept checking his map as he went along. Eventually, as he gazed into the distance from his position on a hill, he spied a settlement in the valley below that had to be the town of La Jolla Amago – and maybe a kilometer to the west, clusters of small buildings that surely comprised the offline community.

An odd sense of déjà vu struck him. He’d seen this before… _a parched land peppered with tin shacks._ When the shaman had visited the lab, months ago. Though if he’d known he was somehow catching glimpses of the future…? He wasn’t sure it would have helped anyway. What else had he seen – ? Not having made a mental note at the time, he found it impossible to recall.

He continued to follow the path through the woods, down the hill, and reached a stream that led him where he wanted to go; at a guess, this spot had been chosen because of the water source as well as the flat land. He walked across fields of yellowing grass dotted with oaks and mountain mahoganies; the somewhat gnarled and stunted trees formed a barrier around the community, he noticed, while providing some shelter inside as well. Palomar Mountain loomed on a scrubby green and brown massif to the north.

The first buildings on the outskirts were small tin shacks with gaping rectangular holes in the sides that were possibly meant to be crude windows. He’d seen more comfortable-looking accommodation in photos of shantytowns. The best that could be said for them, perhaps, was that they were generously spaced apart from each other, and each had a few bushes or trees for shade. Most of the shacks appeared to be occupied; there were towels and clothes slung on the corrugated roofs, on lines strung between trees, and on drying frames. He saw a couple of young women emerge from one, dressed in flowing earth-colored skirts, fluffy white cotton blouses, and Jesus sandals, their long hair decorated with braids interwoven with ribbons. They smiled at him, stared longer than was polite, and then strode off toward a building in the distance that appeared to be made of dark wooden planks.

That, then, was where he would go…if he wanted to stay here, that was. If anyone asked him if he liked what he was seeing, he would have said no. No to the tin huts, and no to the clothes, which were either hippy or Amish in style, probably more the former than the latter.

Well, he never expected he’d fit in very well in the first place. But he needed a place to stay. It didn’t look seedy or dangerous, at any rate. He’d rather live among hippies than among thieves.

More tin shacks. Then, to the north, something resembling a suburb consisting of rows of what appeared to be homes made from adobe. They were still only small, of a cheerful honey color that matched the soil, and had glass windows with brightly painted panes and wooden doors. Some also had lights mounted on the walls, and potted plants on porch areas, along with benches and swings.

There weren’t many people around, it seemed, and he saw no children, though it was possible they’d simply gone inside their shacks or houses. He spotted a handful of men walking in the opposite direction to him, who like the women just stared at him before moving on; they all wore slightly oversized cream-colored button-down shirts and brown pants made of some soft-looking material – hemp or cotton, he wasn’t sure. With suspenders. Who even wore those in this day and age? And brown shoes that appeared to be made of leather. If he didn’t know any better, he would have been tempted to believe he’d gone back two hundred years in time.

What did they do here during the day? he wondered as he approached what he assumed to be the main building, the one made of dark wood that he’d spied earlier. It was several stories tall and sprawling, though still rather crudely built, with balustraded platforms winding around it. Since no main entrance was obvious, Yuuri climbed up a wide flight of stairs and knocked on a set of double doors at the top.

A woman in her late thirties or early forties answered the door. Her clothes were similar to those of the other women he’d seen, only her top was olive-green. She had waist-length blond hair and was wearing some kind of lei around her neck. Superficially it fit the hippie image Yuuri had expected for this place; but there were hard lines around her mouth. And yet she didn’t look unkind; more matronly, maybe, despite the waterfall of hair.

She eyed him with a grin. “Hi. Can I help you?”

Yuuri suddenly realized he ought to have rehearsed this, or at least thought about what he was going to say when he got here. “Hi. Um…I…I’m looking for an offline community to join. Is this Children of Gaia?”

She nodded. “Though I’m afraid we don’t have much room here right now. We get a lot of people coming through. Is there a particular skill you’re able to offer?”

He’d been standing here less than a minute and already felt like he was attending a job interview. “Well…I’m a neuroscientist,” he said, almost apologetically.

She raised her eyebrows. “Wow, OK. But…what does that mean you can do for us here? I’m sorry, but we’re not big fans of tech. It’s my belief that it’s responsible for a lot of evils in the world.”

“I can repair things. You must have _some_ tech here? Or are…do you deliberately live without it?”

Her eyes rested on him for a moment longer. Then she opened the door and ushered him into a large empty room that appeared to be a meeting or dance hall. There was a table with a few chairs off to the side, and she walked over and sat down, gesturing for him to do the same. He removed his backpack and perched on the edge of his chair.

“I’m Meadow. One of the Chief Elders of our community.” She looked at him expectantly.

“Um, John Smith.”

There was a pause. “OK, John, well I have to say I can’t see much use for a scientist or a techie here, but you’re young and strong, and you look healthy – ?” He nodded. “So maybe there’s some manual work you could do for us, but I’d have to find out. Do you have any experience with farming, or in any trades or crafts – beekeeping, furniture-making, forestry, anything like that?”

“No, sorry,” Yuuri said quietly.

The grin Meadow gave him seemed to be genuinely warm. “So what attracted you to a place like this?”

Yuuri chose his words carefully. “I…I’m out of a job. Maybe a whole career, I don’t know. I’ve had my chip removed and I’m not getting it back. I guess I just want a chance to earn an honest living.”

She seemed to be thinking about this. “That an eastern twang in your voice?”

“Boston.”

“You’ve come a long way.”

“There’s no future for me out there without a chip. I, um…would just appreciate a chance to get back on my feet. I’d work hard – anything you need doing, if I can do it, I will – ”

She laughed. “I hear that a lot from people. And…I’m not completely sure you’d fit in with our ethos here,” she added, looking long and hard at him. “The most I can tell you is that I’ll have to talk about it with the other Elders when we meet in a couple of days, and get a handle on all the new arrivals. Until then, though, we won’t turn you away, OK? If you want to come with me, I’ll show you a place you can stay.” She stood up.

“Thanks,” Yuuri said, standing as well, grabbing his backpack, and following her out the door and back down the stairs.

Meadow told him about the community as they walked along. It was only a few years old, and they were just getting on their own feet themselves, which was why they were mainly looking for young adults with practical skills who could help. They had a vision of leading clean, mostly tech-free lives in harmony with nature, mainly through what they could make and harvest with their own hands. Yuuri thought it sounded like a Luddite fantasy; though if they were willing to let him stay, he could learn to deal with it, he supposed. Whatever money was made by individual community members was put into a pot and redistributed according to each person’s needs and responsibilities, though everyone was expected to do their share of work.

She led him to an empty tin shack on the eastern edge of the community and opened the metal door. The floor was packed earth. There was an old rickety wooden table with a lamp and a small fan, a square cracked mirror fixed to the wall behind, and a stained single mattress on a low gray metal frame. A wooden cabinet with a bare countertop. Some recycling bins outside. A wooden bucket with no discernible purpose. That was all, apart from two apertures in the walls. 

“It’s kind of basic, but it should do you for a couple of nights at least, I hope?” Meadow said. “You can use the bucket for fetching water. There’s a pump over there you can drink from.” She pointed out the door. “Biolitter latrines just further on, with a shower block attached. Men and women are sharing for now,” she added a little sheepishly, “but we’re planning on getting that taken care of soon.”

“OK.”

She told him he could come to the lumber yard the next day and help cut and haul wood that would be seasoned for building. If they decided to take him on as a community member, there was more skilled work he could learn too. He wrote in his notepad when meals would be served at the main lodge, and she took it from him to sketch a rough map of the community. Then he thanked her and she went on her way.

The shack was hot inside, even when he turned the fan on. The metal simply soaked up the heat. He took off his backpack and put it in a corner, then sat on the ground with his legs poking out of the doorway and sipped from a carton of water, relieved that he could get more from the pump when he needed it. A latrine nearby would frankly be handy too, after all the rough-and-ready solutions he’d had to come up with during his train-hopping journey when there were few publicly accessible bathrooms around. And showers…with women. It didn’t bother him, though he was concerned it might bother them. Or maybe they were used to it here.

There was plenty to be thankful for. So he told himself. A place to stay, though there seemed to be no way of locking it. Ready-made meals – though how close they were to the paleo diet that worked for him better than anything else he’d tried, he didn’t want to speculate. Work he could do to earn his keep, though in this place it was unlikely to amount to anything more interesting than heavy lifting. He didn’t have a better clue about his future than he had when he’d left Boston, but he was certain it did not hold a career in beekeeping or forest husbandry. Still…

_Still, I might be able to get back on my feet here. That’s what I said. That’s what I set out to do. I had to get away, for a start, and find somewhere to settle down for a while._

He half-closed his eyes and leaned against the uncomfortable thin edge of the tin wall, watching the branches of a copse of mountain mahoganies sway in the breeze a few meters away. Cirrus clouds drifted in a glaringly blue sky. Some kind of bird of prey hovered high above. He ran his fingers through the powdery ochre dirt, hoping he could drift off to sleep for a while, unwilling to listen to anything his brain wanted to tell him right now. But he wasn’t tired, and the mattress wasn’t very inviting. The books he’d bought at the antique hall halfway across the continent still nestled in his backpack, unread. Now didn’t seem to be the right time to remedy that, however.

Silence lay over the land, unbroken.

He was alone.

***

Over the following days, he took his backpack everywhere he went.  He supposed he could simply keep his money in his pockets…but there was a lot of it. Hide it in a hole in a tree somewhere? No thanks. That was one definite advantage of the chip. One among thousands. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they could also be hacked and used to spy on you, Yuuri would’ve said they were the best invention since sliced bread. He had to admit he missed it. A lot. Like he missed many other things.

Meat, for one thing. This place had turned out to be vegetarian. Paleo it was not. His gut had been making loud noises of protest, and letting him know in other ways it wasn’t happy, though he was sure the food was wholesome and well-cooked. Or at least he wanted to believe it was. Vegetable soup. Hummus. Lots of bread and porridge. Eggs, cheese, nuts. Could be a lot worse. He didn’t have as much energy as usual, though, and decided he would buy some jerky next time he was at a store that sold it.

Entertainment, for another thing. What did people _do_ here when they weren’t working? He’d seen them talking to each other. Hoped maybe someone who was more well-versed in the social graces would greet him. It didn’t happen. Though it was easy to see who was a community member and who, like him, had just arrived, because they wore ordinary clothing rather than the earthy cottons that almost seemed to be a uniform here. Yuuri had tried talking to some of these young men and women during communal meals, but he’d found them less forthcoming than his fellow train-hoppers tended to be. As if they just wanted to keep themselves to themselves. He’d thought that was his own peculiar specialty, but he had to admit he was outdone here. It was a strange combination, this place, of old-fashioned hippie values and quiet regimented rules and work ethics. They were all unchipped, and had a watch or a timepiece of some kind so that they showed up to work and meals on schedule. The Elders, who he gathered from the brief conversations he’d had were a mixture of permanent founders of the community and elected representatives, seemed to make the decisions, and were in charge of finances. To Yuuri it all felt rather disempowering. He didn’t _want_ someone else to be in charge of him like that. He wanted to be free to live where and how he wanted, buy his own food and cook his own meals, and choose what kind of job he had.

_Doesn’t everyone want that, though? How lucky was I to have it all for as long as I did?_

The lumber yard was full of sawdust. It smelled nice but got up his nose and into his throat. He pushed wheelbarrows of wood around and even took an axe and a saw to some logs as he was told to do, wondering what on earth was stopping these people from buying simple machinery that could perform such work more quickly and easily; machinery that had existed for decades. When he finally asked as tactfully as he could, he got the line again about making and harvesting things with their own hands. It made no sense to him; but as it was enabling him to receive room and board, he didn’t attempt to argue.

In the evenings when the sun went down, he sat in the doorway of his shack and listened to the crickets chirp, and the occasional hoot of an owl or cry of a coyote. It had all been a thrilling novelty at first, which he’d quickly gotten used to. At least when you were bored in a train, you could watch the land roll by. There was little here that moved, though he was sure he saw a huge brown spider creeping disconcertingly close to him at one point, before it sensed his alarmed movement and scurried under a leaf pile.

At one point he’d gotten up, slung his backpack on, and walked around with the aid of his flashlight; the area was like a campground at night. He heard noises of conversation and laughter at an adobe house and ventured a little closer, to see a group of ten people or so on benches or sitting on the ground, drinking and sharing something around that might have been a joint or might have been something else; Yuuri wasn’t near enough to smell it. Those like him who lived in the shacks generally didn’t seem to do such things; whether because they couldn’t afford to, didn’t have access to the means, or just didn’t want to, he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that it was an odd commune where people were living and working in close proximity and yet at the same time were less communicative than Yuuri had been with his neighbors in his apartment building. People came and went, to and from their shacks, without saying much. There was a teenager who lived in the shack nearest to Yuuri with an Indian appearance who looked like he was about sixteen. He had an elderly Indian man in there with him who Yuuri assumed was a relative, though he seldom emerged from the shack. But the boy had a look on his face – the same look as so many here – that said he just wanted to be left alone to go about his business.

The next time Yuuri was in the lumber yard, the man in charge there, Frank, gave him instructions for where to take the wood which were either wrong or he’d misunderstood; and being in a bad mood as he apparently was that day, he gave Yuuri a chewing-out in front of everyone else in the yard. He was a “fragged Japanese bastard” who couldn’t follow simple directions. Why didn’t he just fuck off back to wherever he’d come from. The others stood and stared in silence.

_I’m a genius neuroscientist who could knock you to the floor without laying a finger on you. I bet I could, too, the way I’m feeling right now. It’s just like when Vic…_

The fight suddenly drained out of him, and he eyed the man silently. Then tipped the wheelbarrow over that he’d been holding up by the handles, from which a pile of logs cascaded; turned on his heel, and strode off back to his shack – “his” not for much longer, he was sure.

“This place is a fucking nightmare,” he muttered to himself, kicking a glass bottle he came across on the path to kingdom come. And he’d been wrong back there as well. He _wasn’t_ a neuroscientist; not anymore. He was chipless, unemployed, and eventually would be impoverished as well, unless by some miracle the tide turned his way. But he couldn’t see how. Being smart was no advantage here either. It didn’t help you haul lumber. It didn’t keep you company in your shack, or make the days pass any faster.

The next morning he was visited early by Meadow, who instead of ordering him to pack his bags and go, invited him to stay, saying he was clearly a hard worker, and he’d be welcome. Though “welcome” was not something he’d felt since the moment he’d set foot here. When he asked about Frank, she said it was a difficult situation because he had expertise that was invaluable to the community; but he’d been reprimanded, and she was sure they could find Yuuri work to do elsewhere. He accepted politely, his heart feeling like a stone.

“Do you organize things for people to do here?” he asked. “You know, like in the evenings, or on weekends?”

She sighed regretfully. “There’s just been so much to take care of since we got started. For a while we couldn’t even offer meals at the lodge, and people had to get their own. Piece by piece, we’re growing. Sometimes we have dances or karaoke in the main hall; lots of people here play instruments. Or we’ll show a movie. Though now that you’re staying, you’ll get to know people, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about.”

“Sure,” Yuuri said, toeing the ground.

“If you can stay in the lodge after you’ve had your breakfast,” Meadow said in a more businesslike tone, “and bring your clothes with you, we’ll have a meeting together with the other new community members, and a burning ceremony.”

Yuuri’s eyes shot open wide. “A…what?”

“Didn’t anyone mention it to you? Oh. Well, you’ve seen how we dress here. We wear clothes that we make ourselves, or buy or trade from people in similar communities. All these Chinese clothes that are the fashion nowadays – and that includes things like you’re wearing, John, which you must know are mass-produced in sweatshops over there – we don’t believe they’re appropriate. We’ll give you new clothes to wear, and burn the old ones.”

“And…burn…” Yuuri’s voice trailed off in disbelief.

“To mark your new beginning as a member of Children of Gaia, yes. We’ve lost many of our rituals in modern society. They can be a big help to us in making transitions.”

Yuuri was beginning to wonder if he’d wandered too close to something somebody had been smoking the night before. “Uh…OK.”

She asked him his clothes and shoe sizes, which she wrote down in a notebook taken from a deep pocket in her voluminous skirt. He didn’t have any desire to be parted from the ones he already owned, but if this was what she wanted, he supposed he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

“While I’m here,” she added, “is everything else to your satisfaction? Have you been OK?”

He glanced back at the bare mattress and the holes for windows. “Is it possible to get some curtains for those? You know, so I can have some privacy?”

“Of course. I’ll see what I can do. And…one more thing I need to know. Your sexual orientation. Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual – ”

“What do you want to know _that_ for?” Yuuri asked in shock.

She gave him a little apologetic smile. “I’m sorry – I really thought someone would have explained this to you. It’s just for your benefit. We want to make sure our members have everything they need.”

“They…need?”

“We know these things can be awkward to arrange sometimes, especially in a small-ish community like ours, so we can send someone to see you when you ask. Or we can give you the names of other members who have authorized us to do so, and you can go to them in the knowledge that they want to participate.”

“Y-You mean, have sex?”

“Well yes. So…” Her manner reminded him of a waitress taking an order. “I assumed that was something you might like, but if not – ”

“No,” he blurted quickly. “It isn’t.”

She shrugged. “That’s fine. Well, if there’s nothing else, then, John, I’ll see you after breakfast. And welcome to Children of Gaia.”


	29. Chapter 29

Breakfast was plain porridge. It gave Yuuri a bloated stomach and made him feel sleepy and heavy. He wondered how long he would have to be a community member before it was acceptable for him to suggest they offer a few other things to choose from, like eggs or cheese. Or maybe he’d just get his own, though he had no storage facilities other than the cupboard.

The entire community had turned up for the meal at roughly the same time today, and the existing members waited in the hall of the main lodge while the new ones, including Yuuri, were sent to an adjoining room to change into their new clothes. Yuuri had been given two sets of everything: shirts, pants, suspenders, even underwear. The shoes seemed well made and would probably sell for a lot of money in a store, though they were less practical than tennis shoes. When his group reentered the hall, they were all shepherded outside to where a bonfire was burning. Everyone circled around while Meadow, two other women about her age, and three older men guided the ceremony. Each new community member was asked to step forward to be introduced, and then they tossed their old clothes onto the fire. Yuuri watched it all silently, arms folded across his chest, and got his own part over with as John Smith. He decided they all looked like refugees from an old TV program he’d seen called _Little House on the Prairie._ They weren’t pioneers, so why they had to dress like it, he hadn’t a clue. Or…maybe they were like hobbits from _The Lord of the Rings._ No; come to think of it, hobbits were more colorful.

He was aware that no one was forcing him to stay here. But he’d been accepted now. He was the leaf hiding in a pile of other leaves. And when Meadow had told him in their first meeting that many others had traveled through, also hoping to stay, it had left him with a lingering worry that demand for places in these communities no doubt outstripped supply, maybe drastically so, possibly across the entire country. If the alternative was going through the money he had left until he was broke and forced to find a refugee camp…well, suddenly this community didn’t seem like a bad alternative. So he told himself.

One of the male Elders, who called himself Wolf, reviewed the rules while the fire burned and crackled. It was a long list. Only essential tech was allowed, most of it in the main lodge – the washing machines, refrigerators, hobs and ovens and so on were there; if individuals wanted to use them, they needed to get permission or book a time slot. No one to be high or hung over when they were meant to be working, so the best times for those activities were Friday night and Saturday. Many community members, both old and new, had no desire to talk about their past, so they ran a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, unless people were sufficiently well acquainted to discuss whether they wanted to disclose that information. Yuuri felt that was something he could relate to, in a way; though he knew it would also encourage everyone to remain closed off from each other, and he’d felt that vibe strongly enough here already. Finally, they were looking for anyone who was interested in forming two soccer teams; and there was going to be a camping trip over the weekend, so anyone who wanted to go should inform an Elder. Yuuri thought these were almost comically ordinary announcements to append at the end.

When the crowd dispersed, Meadow pulled him aside and told him his services would be appreciated out on the flats where they made adobe bricks for house-building, if that was an acceptable alternative to the lumber yard for him; and he said it was, though he was glad he’d kept his hat in his shack rather than bringing it to toss onto the fire, since it sounded like he’d be spending the day bent over with the sun beating down on him. She said that if he helped build enough homes of this type, he could have one himself one day. He decided not to hold his breath.

At least he was sent away with bedsheets and a pillow, which would make things a little more comfortable. He deposited them in his shack, drank plenty of water and filled his cartons, stuck his hat on, and trudged off in the direction he’d been shown.

It was a long day, and more exhausting than anything he could remember. Wetting patches of dirt that had a high proportion of clay content and had already been baking in the sun; pouring fine sand on top and breaking it apart and mixing it with a shovel. Transferring the mixture to wooden frames. Again and again, until the muscles in his back were protesting. He tried at first to make small talk with the other men and women working with him. They asked his name again, and if he was liking it here. He said yes. They gave him information about the stores in La Jolla Amago and said there was a small Cloud café. At lunchtime, a woman with short brown hair who appeared to be in her early thirties and called herself Wildfire accompanied Yuuri to the lodge, where they had a meal of shepherd’s pie made with some kind of ground-meat substitute. They ate, mostly in silence; or rather Wildfire ate, and Yuuri tried to force himself but didn’t get far, put off by the bland and artificial taste. Afterward, she asked him as casually as if she were going through the options on a menu whether he wanted to have sex for a while, before they returned to the flats. Yuuri declined politely, though he figured he hadn’t exactly made a friend.

That evening, as he sat in his shack and sipped at a carton of water, watching the trees sway outside, he wondered if he would continue to be pressured here in that way. Not long ago, he figured he would have been flattered, and jumped at the chance to experience what he’d been missing out on. As he thought about it, however, he discovered he’d come recently to view sex as more of an intimate activity best enjoyed with someone he cared about. And there was one reason for that. Yes, he wanted to do it. Very much. In all kinds of ways. With one specific person.

_I can’t be like this the rest of my life. At some point I’m going to have to move on._

He knew he wasn’t ready now. And he wasn’t going to force himself into anything.

_I wish I could call him…just to hear his voice…no – to tell him to explain himself. But he’d just repeat the same things – that I’m paranoid. Sick. Come with him to New York, etcetera etcetera. His amigos at the Coughlin Institute would probably be thrilled to find out I wanted to crawl back for more. And then they’d trace me here._

The distant strumming of an acoustic guitar floated on the breeze. Eventually he fell into a doze in the doorway, leaning against the metal wall. Sometime in the night he shifted to his bed. He forced his thoughts away when he was conscious. They rampaged back in his dreams, often waking him with a start, sweat beading on his forehead, mingling with tears. It was a long time until the first rays of dawn were visible from the hole in the wall.

***

_[It’s you. I’ve missed you. Hi.]_

Yuuri had barely hauled himself into a vertical position on the mattress when the presence made itself felt. His back was aching, and his eyelids kept trying to droop shut. The gray metal interior of the shack was dark and reminded him of a warehouse; there was a white square on the opposite wall where the watery sunlight shone through.

He had not been keeping up with his ESP sessions since he’d left Boston, certainly not on a regular basis. He’d done some in trains and in the evenings, outside or in motels. But mostly he’d been quietly hoping to avoid them. Truthfully, he was more fed up with the ESP than he’d ever been in his life, the temptation to blame it for his current predicament almost irresistible. So what if he could do flink things to electronic equipment? Better for it to be unnecessary in the first place.

But there was no getting away from the fact that if he didn’t seek them out, they would inevitably find him. Maybe this time he could be thankful, anyway, that a “regular” had contacted him, rather than a panicky new presence. It would be less draining.     

He recognized the feel of this person as Cub. And it was true, they hadn’t been around in a while. It was always difficult to gather anything specific about the presences, though he got an impression of youth and energy from this one, so the nickname seemed to suit.

_[Hi!]_ he sent, with a degree of enthusiasm that surprised him. He realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any meaningful communication with anybody.

_[Did you know you can see the energy centers in your body? I learned how to do that.]_

Yuuri closed his eyes and smiled, his aching muscles temporarily forgotten. _[No. Show me?]_

Cub did. Glowing balls of spinning color, like he’d seen in diagrams that supposedly showed the chakras lined up from the base of the spine to the top of the head. It wasn’t possible to see them in a physical sense of course, but they were clear in his mind’s eye – as were the patches of darkness, like soot, that could cling to them when they needed clearing, apparently. He wondered if there were any practical implications to this, and decided he would file it away for later investigation. Cub was excited to have shown him something new. Well, Yuuri could return the favor.

_[You can damage electronic equipment. That’s something_ I _learned.]_

_[Wow!!! Teach me how!]_

Yuuri laughed aloud. Of course he would. He’d teach them all. Maybe eventually they’d teach each other so many things that –

_[!!!]_ The fizzing excitement had gone, replaced by alarm.

Yuuri sat up straighter. _[What’s wrong?]_

_[Noise. Somebody’s here who shouldn’t be.]_

Yuuri felt his heart leap into his throat. _[Stay with me.]_

_[Loud. Approaching. Going to try the window.]_

_[Do you know who it is?]_

_[Must be an intruder.]_

Yuuri waited, sweat breaking out along his hairline. Then he decided to send, _[If they have a laser gun, gather a ball of energy with your solar plexus chakra and send it. Like this.]_ He concentrated on how it felt, hoping the message would get across. Both of them were agitated enough to struggle with maintaining a tenuous connection.

_[I can’t get out!]_

_[Have they got a gun? What’s happening??]_

An image like a dream was superimposed on Yuuri’s thoughts. He could visualize a shadow against darker shadows. A gun in its hand, with a ring on one of its fingers; these objects stood out from the hazy surroundings with brighter clarity, obviously the targets of Cub’s terrified scrutiny.

He knew that ring.

_[Get out, get out, GET OUT!!!]_ he sent, suddenly aware that he was shouting it physically as well, at the same time as jumping to his feet. Their connection was almost, but not quite, gone. Cub was hanging on somehow, as was he.

_[Threat…operation…no…frightened. Go away and leave me alone.]_

Cub was thinking these things at the intruder, Yuuri knew. _[They won’t. They will never leave you alone. They’ll kill you. Send the energy at the gun – like I showed you…]_

_[Trying…trying…frightened…]_

_[You_ have _to. Keep trying.]_

_[Try – ]_

_[Are you there? Do what I showed you, do it now! It’s your only chance! Please – please be there…]_

_[…]_

Yuuri collapsed to his knees and sank his head onto the mattress, tears spilling down as he choked out sobs.

It had been months since this had happened. And what had he been doing – ? Hoping that it wouldn’t ever happen again. When it had almost happened to _him_.

And he had known how to disarm laser guns for weeks. He should have been teaching every presence he came across how to do it, even the new ones. Maybe not all of them would be able to, or be as adept at it as he was. But who knew? He should have been _trying._

Not that it would have saved Cub. Not this time.

_“Fuck!”_ he shouted, swinging a fist into the tin wall of the shack, which reverberated. A sharp pain shot up his arm, and a fresh cut across his knuckles began to bleed. He sank his upper body back onto the mattress, still kneeling on the cool bare earthen floor.

What the hell use was he to anybody? He wasn’t even sure he’d eluded the bastards himself. All right, he hadn’t seen any security cameras here at the commune; and, given their pervasive distrust of tech, there were unlikely to be any. But how determined were his pursuers? How much of a threat did they feel he posed to them? Had they been satisfied with driving him out of Boston? Or were they still trying to hunt him down? Would they discover his image on any security cameras he’d missed taking out in the places he’d visited? Had someone seen him, recognized him, reported him? How close did Crow have to get to be able to sense his presence? Yuuri knew a fear always lurked in the back of his mind that he’d turn a corner, or open his front door, and come face to face with an agent, maybe even Crow himself. It haunted him more than any other nightmare. He always carried his stun gun with him as a precaution, though what use it was against someone in ambush with a laser gun…

_And here I am, worrying about saving my own skin, when I’ve just witnessed what was probably another murder. I heard their last thoughts. They died while I was trying…failing…to help them._

He was late for work at the adobe flats. He made no apology.

***

One evening he visited La Jolla Amago. It was a small, unremarkable town with a few stores and amenities. He had a dinner of bacon, eggs and sausages at a diner, relishing the flavor of the meat. Went to the small department store and bought towels, things to eat and drink from, and two pairs of bright flowery curtains, since Meadow seemed to be in no hurry to procure anything of that nature herself; and if she did, he figured it would probably be the same plain material that his clothes had been made of. Then he bought a screw and bracket kit from a hardware store, and some more soap, shaving cream and toothpaste from a grocery. On the outskirts of the town he passed an antique store that was open late, feeling desperate now for a radio, or anything that would play music. There was nothing, however, and all they could tell him was that they had new things in occasionally but couldn’t predict when, so he should try another time.

There was no problem with paying in cash anywhere, though he hadn’t expected there to be, since the town obviously serviced the commune. However, he had damaged a fair number of security cameras, and knew that every time he visited a store or a similar establishment, it was still a necessity. He would have to keep his visits to a minimum.

So he had curtains, which he mounted on the brackets. The square of light on the wall now became a diffuse kaleidoscope of magenta, royal blue and buttercup yellow. It was soothing to watch, while he sat in his accustomed position in the open doorway. He had a maroon-colored ceramic mug he could drink water from if he wanted to, instead of a carton.

_Hey. I’m moving up in the world. From measuring firing synapses to buying mugs and curtains, in a matter of weeks. Maybe I’ll reinvent the wheel next._

What was it Onawa had said to him – ? _Cynicism does not become you._ And she’d also said, _You will suffer until you fully embrace this part of yourself._ Both of those things.

“Try being me, here and now, and say that,” he bit out. “You try it and see how it feels!” He slammed the mug as hard as he could onto the ground beside him. And again and again, grunting while tears trickled down his cheeks. Until the handle snapped off. Then he leaned against the metal wall and sobbed quietly, and long, his mind blanking.

“I don’t know what to do,” he eventually whispered to nobody, wiping his nose on the cuff of his shirt and then smearing over the wet on his face. “Somebody get me out of here. Just…put me back where I belong.” He shook with more silent sobs. “Please.”

He’d exhausted himself enough, through the brick-making and the shopping trip and the crying, that sleeping wasn’t difficult that night. A few more days passed, and time seemed to have little meaning outside of the minute he was expected to report to the flats and the one where it meant he could go – back to his hut, by himself. He didn’t know what was going on at the lodge. While he might initially have been curious, now he didn’t care. He made another evening trip to the antique shop, picking carefully through all the goods on display in the hope that he would at least find a piece of tech, old or not so old, that he could use his toolkit to tinker with, but had no success. And again, he’d felt obliged to take out their camera. “Goddamn thing, just got that fixed,” he heard the proprietor mutter.

When the weekend arrived, he’d decided he needed to do something more proactive to try to cheer himself up, and embarked upon a hiking trip to Palomar Mountain. The peace and solitude of nature often felt like a relief and a renewal. He bought some jerky and other supplies at the nearest corner grocery store, reluctantly taking their camera out as well, and was glad to get away from the commune for a while. The vistas he could see from the path, between the pine trees, encompassed rolling hills with chaparral, wheat-colored valleys, and patches of tall trees; and he could trace the route of the local stream for kilometers in either direction.

It was everything he’d hoped it would be. Minus the emotional balm he needed most, which it was soon obvious a simple trip into the hills could not provide. This wasn’t solitude; some cherished escape from the business of modern life, the many complex demands of his job and the city. This was enforced isolation. Loneliness. It was no fun doing this by himself when he wanted, _needed_ , to be with somebody.

Yet he still made his way to the Palomar Observatory, admiring the shining white building with its great dome. It looked just like he remembered it from his childhood. He’d fallen in love with it for a time, this finely tuned instrument that could see so far and detect such wonders, and had thought the answers to everything he wanted to know must surely lie in astrophysics. Until he’d had to confront the fact that he was shit at math, with a father who was an internationally renowned professor in the subject and wrote books about it. _That_ had gone over well.

Maybe if he’d just worked harder, he would’ve overcome whatever barriers had been holding him back. It wasn’t as if he was stupid. He could still do math; he was just prone to making mistakes. Well, stars and planets didn’t make mistakes, he thought as he gazed up at the sky. They carried on in their orbits. Sailing through the universe. Perfectly describable with the right mathematical formulae. That was the real beauty of it. That was their language; and when you learned it, the secrets of creation lay at your fingertips.

“I should’ve gone and done that, instead of studying the brain,” he said to himself as he stood, the breeze playing through his hair. Though what would it have mattered, in the end? It wouldn’t have stopped the ESP from developing. Besides, even if he hadn’t met Victor – or Victor hadn’t deliberately gone to meet him – he might still have ended up in this situation.

And Victor really was the last thing he wanted to think about right now. The churning emotions it always brought up made him feel sick.

Having achieved the main objective of his hike, he wasn’t sure he wanted to carry on for the rest of the weekend, up here by himself. It would probably not be much different down in the commune, but he wasn’t in a position to enjoy his trip here, and it seemed silly to persevere and make it into a chore.

He turned and headed down the path, and was back in his shack before nightfall.

***

Sunday was spent idly wandering around the commune and the surrounding area. Yuuri wondered whether he might come across anything of interest. There were fields that grew the different crops used here for food, while some were set aside to sell. Beehives; Yuuri kept well clear of those. The banks of the stream were pleasant, and little silver fish darted through the clear waters. He sat down and watched.

_I need to do something with my life. This isn’t any good._

But what? Maybe he should take a chance, after all, and try to find another commune where he fit in better. As long as he didn’t end up going from the frying pan into the fire. Were there any out there that were better than this one, or was this what they generally were like?

He lingered near the stream a while longer, skipping the evening meal, not feeling like it was worth the effort to walk to the lodge and sit and eat unappetizing food in silence. Well, to be fair, sometimes it was pretty good. But it tended to be hit and miss.

On his way to his shack, he passed the neighboring one where the young and old Indian men lived. The young one, whose name he’d learned was Jignesh, was just returning himself, and gave a cursory wave and hello. Yuuri caught a glimpse of the old man through the open door of their shack. He was staring out, his dark eyes following him. Yuuri glanced at him briefly, and he vaguely registered the scent of some kind of incense as he went by. Then he was back at his shack. Each time he came here, he found himself more hesitant to enter. As if he were voluntarily returning to a prison cell. 

_Don’t be so melodramatic. You can leave any time you want._

_Sure I can. Right back to Eagle Hill._

_Fuck it. Fuck it to hell._

He felt himself beginning to shake as he sat down in the doorway. The blood raced through his veins. His mind worked and worked at nothing. A gnawing pain grew in the pit of his stomach. He tucked his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, rocking himself slightly, bowing his head.

_I can’t sit here another night like this. I’m going crazy._

He stood, grabbed his backpack, and headed back out.


	30. Chapter 30

It had been raining hard for the past half hour. Yuuri watched the needle-like drops plash into growing puddles outside his shack. His curtains were soaked and clinging to the metal surrounding the holes they patched. The warm air smelled of petrichor, and chocolate.

There was a pile of colorful wax-paper wrappers on the dirt floor next to him. A couple of empty cardboard boxes, and some flat pink paper bags. He forced himself not to think about what had been inside it all; what he’d eaten, all in one sitting.

It had been a couple of weeks since he’d started this again. Since he’d felt like his head was going to explode, or he was going to scream and never stop. The university counselor, Jean, had helped him learn how to experience his feelings without panicking – both extremes, joyful as well as distraught. But this…this was beyond distraught. It was flailing. Drifting in some void. Second by second grinding past, each one defining the next milestone in the unceasing pain that pervaded his body, his mind, his heart. In the end it had felt like too much – an avalanche from which there was nowhere to run or hide.

He knew that the way he’d chosen to deal with it only made everything worse in the long run; but the short-term relief always seemed to push that awareness out of his consciousness, an unpleasant reality kicked into the tall grass until it festered and grew there and came rampaging back. That usually took a while, though he knew he was well along that path.

His waistband was tighter, despite the fact that he was still working hard every day in the adobe flats, and also helping to build an actual adobe house. It burned calories, but nothing like enough; that simply wasn’t possible.

That frightened him.

In the little grocery store, he was so focused on the food, and at the same time so tired of taking out security cameras, that he’d found it almost impossible to dig up the motivation for what had become a simple action that took no more than a few seconds. It had felt like it didn’t matter anymore, though he’d made himself do it anyway.

That frightened him, too.

The food coma had dulled the jagged edges of his thoughts and feelings, slowing them into sluggishness. Or, more accurately, postprandial somnolence due to the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Though even without the useless biochem monitor he still carried at the bottom of his backpack, he knew he was also full of serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins because of the massive sugar hit he’d just given himself. He let his eyelids droop, some droplets squeezing out to run down his face before they shut completely. A _Ramona Sentinel_ lay discarded on the ground next to his hand, resting palm up in lassitude. He’d spent some time looking over a small display of books in the store, hoping to find something he was in the mood for. Crime novel? He didn’t need to read about people being hunted down by authorities with guns. Self-help book? Get real. There were some cookbooks, but as he had no means of cooking, he ignored them. He’d ended up with the newspaper, but that hadn’t really interested him either.

He stared at the gray wet sheet outside, the water beginning to run down the slight incline now in muddy rivulets. His world had shrunk to this little rectangle, framed by the metal walls. The reality still bit, but he’d removed its teeth for now, so it simply clung to the edges of his awareness.

For a moment, just a passing moment, he hated himself. For what he was doing – ruining those years of hard work. And for what – who – he had become; or rather, for who he had been, and was no longer.

_No. I don’t deserve that, any more than anyone else does. If I don’t think of other people like that, I shouldn’t think of myself that way either._

That was something else Jean had taught him. She’d always spoken to him like what he said _mattered._ Like he deserved to be heard.

He’d addressed students…entire audiences of academics…who had also wanted to listen; who thought he had something worth saying.

Phichit respected him, too.

Victor…He flinched. In his torpor, maybe he could think about it without feeling like he’d been slashed by knives. It had _felt_ like Victor had respected – _cared_ about – him more than anyone else ever had. Believed in him. And if it hadn’t been real…? Perhaps, if he could look past the betrayal, he could take those feelings away and treasure them, because they at least _were_ real, irrespective of what had evoked them.

_Until I gain so much weight that no one will ever want to look at me._

_No. I had to learn how to value myself before I lost the weight in the first place. I’m not throwing all that away now._

The devil’s advocate inside of him replied, _You know how it goes. Slipping into old habits. They’ll become so familiar again, so fast, that these past few years will seem like a dream. The slim, healthy, desirable man you always wanted to be is not who you really are, and he will slide back into your little pool of fantasies where he belongs._

“No,” he said aloud, just to hear his voice. It made him sound more decisive somehow. “My job, my relationships…they’re not who I _am._ Nothing can touch that. Nothing. I’m not going to let myself be pulled down.”

_And I…I beat this before. I can do it again._

But _could_ he…here? Alone?

Another tear slid down his cheek; a quiet echo of the weather outside. He leaned against the tin wall and dozed.

***

It was oval-shaped, like a full-length mirror. Only, instead of reflecting its surroundings, it was…not black; not any color at all, if that was possible. Just… _nothing._ There was nothing there. Like the stuff of the world flowed past it in one great river. To cross that barrier, to go inside, would be to discover a completely different state of being. Something _other._ Alien. Terrifying. Every time Yuuri saw it, he wanted to run away from it.

That was impossible, however, because it was in his mind.

As if the Orphic egg and the murders weren’t bad enough. Now this. But it didn’t seem as if any of the presences were transmitting it; not _in extremis_ or in any other state of mind. The image had first manifested itself while he was drifting off to sleep one night; and he’d seen it again now, after a long evening’s ESP session. He hadn’t known what else to do, and it was the most productive idea he could come up with; though in truth, he still just wanted it all to go away. Here was another reason.

As abstract as the oval seemed to be, it was incongruously surrounded by grass and trees, with blue sky peeking behind it all. As if it had emerged, like a sudden rash, in the middle of the most pleasantly innocuous woodland scene. Though it was actually kind of mesmerizing to look at; beautiful, even, with its fuzzy blue-tinged edges and fluid curves.

Maybe it wasn’t anything real or dreadful. The line between what came via ESP, and what he conjured from his own imagination, was often frustratingly blurred. Like something from a dream, maybe this needed to be read as a symbol, or a warning. A hole trying to suck him in? Depression? Despair?

“Whatever it is, I don’t need it. I’m _sick_ of it. More fucking craziness is the last thing I want in my life.”

He sat up on his mattress, rubbing his eyes and stretching, grounding himself back in reality. There had been one new presence tonight, and a couple of older ones he’d recognized. No Cub, of course. Those who had seen the Orphic egg still never returned, and now Yuuri knew why. It had been difficult to decide what to do about it. The symbol had haunted him for a long time; but had that foreknowledge been of any real benefit? Had it been worth the anxiety; the constant fear that _he_ might be next? Maybe warning people would only place a burden on their shoulders that they were better off without. But what he _could_ do was teach them all how to disable electronic devices, specifically laser guns and surveillance cameras. He’d begun to do this regularly, though the feeling he got from the presences was that they couldn’t understand what he seemed to be so afraid of. In fact, he was pretty sure most of them had never seen a real laser gun in their lives. But he knew he had to try. It was up to them what to do with the information, and maybe it would help.

He had to keep fighting the temptation to believe that it wouldn’t. Not any of them. Because they thought he was paranoid. You couldn’t hide things like that when you were communicating this way.

_Even among other people with ESP, no one sees me as normal. We can keep showing each other party tricks, or we can equip ourselves to survive…which do you think would be more useful? Would anyone like to answer that?_

As it so often did in this place, his mind kept grinding away at thoughts that were pointless or even ridiculous. They just tumbled around, never staying away for long before boomeranging back.

_I should’ve let Victor perform that operation. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess._

But then, he would just be doing a good impression of an ostrich burying its head in the sand. And he knew he couldn’t live like that, his life a lie. They would’ve killed him anyway, he suspected.

_Maybe I should’ve stayed on those psych meds, years ago. They blocked the symptoms, too…well, kind of._

But he knew immediately how absurd that was. All those terrible side effects. They only blocked the symptoms because they had dehumanized him.

And none of these things would’ve stopped the surveillance via his chip, and other people’s. All the conversations they must have overheard…how much had they actually listened to over the years? There was no telling.

What was it they claimed – ? If you had nothing to hide, you had nothing to fear.

Who would be the judge of that? Them, of course.

_Bastards._

Maybe he ought to live by a new motto, and quote it to himself regularly. _The truth will set you free._

***

He visited the Cloud café late one afternoon, wondering if he could find any information about jobs he could do without a chip. Noticing for the first time that they had payphones – something he’d never seen anywhere else – he fed coins in while making what he figured was a rather audacious call to Caltech. He didn’t give his name; just said he was a student considering study and a career there in neuroscience. Somehow, after being transferred from person to person, he ended up in conversation with an actual faculty member. She said that while they were accepting of people without a chip, and sympathetic to that lifestyle, no one could realistically hope at this time to be able to work in academia, let alone neuroscience, without one; they just were not set up to cope with it. Yuuri couldn’t think of anything else to say or ask, so he’d quickly ended the conversation with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Who else would be interested in his particular skills set? Private research labs and teaching facilities, maybe – but all of them would expect him to be chipped as well.

Could he train to do something else? What?

_Adobe house-making._ He wanted to snort a little laugh, but felt more like crying; and drifted back over to a computer screen, where he passed some time playing games and reading science news until he’d had enough of it all and decided to leave.

On his way out of town, he passed a bakery he’d never noticed before and went inside, at the same time filling with trepidation. _This is no good. If I like the food, I’ll want to keep coming back._

As he often did in such situations, where he felt he _needed to have this_ or he would go crazy, he decided that he would put his willpower into proper action tomorrow; and bought a bag of doughuts and croissants, and a piece of chocolate cake slathered in frosting. He thought of nothing on the way back to his shack other than how wonderful it would all taste. The soft fleshy texture of the bread as his teeth sank into it; the sweet rich custard and buttercream. He knew he was being disgusting. But no one _else_ had to know. No one else would understand anyway, and it was his own cross to bear, because the consequences were always the same, no matter how long he tried to ignore them. He ignored them now.

When he was finished eating, with his pulse pounding through his veins in a sugar and insulin rush, he admitted to himself that he was addicted again. The cravings were back when he hadn’t had anything sweet to eat. The hypoglycemic crashes. The weight gain. Spending his money over and over on crap that was hurting him. And he _knew_ it, and was still doing it.

_I am going to stop. I’m better than this._

He drifted into an unquiet sleep punctuated by nightmares, and a racing heart and sweats produced by biochemistry that needed no monitor to tell him how out of balance it was.

***

He didn’t feel like leaving bed in the morning, and it was with leaden feet that he made his way to the lodge for a breakfast of porridge, and then work at the flats. The fatigue ironically drained away as the day wore on, even though his body felt like it was being stretched on a rack, aching from top to bottom. And he was cranky; he knew it. Though as everyone simply got on with their work and had little to say, he didn’t need to worry about being tempted to take it out on anyone. There wasn’t any opportunity.

He was fighting off a craving as he trudged back to his shack at the end of the day, trying to reason with all the unreasonable self-inflicted chemical processes running amok inside of him.

_I can’t keep going to the store all the time. At the very least, I ought to offer to foot the bill for the security cameras they have to keep replacing._

_Maybe I ought to just buy a bag of sugar, some sticks of butter, a tin of cocoa powder, and mix them together when I want something._

_Yuuri, that is…god, where do I even begin. It is so not normal. It’s completely desperate and utterly fucked up._

_It doesn’t matter how much I crave it. I have to stop._

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost tripped over the elderly Indian man before he saw him lying on the ground. Gasping and crouching down, he was relieved to see the man was moving at least. He was dressed like Yuuri, in the clothes of the commune, with nut-brown skin and white hair, lying on his side as if he’d hurt himself.

“Can you get up? Here, let me help you.” He held out a hand and the man took it in his own, like a dry wrinkled leaf. He stood and turned, still holding Yuuri’s hand as he tried and failed to take his weight on both feet, while Yuuri looked into his large dark brown eyes.

And suddenly he knew. 

But he still tried to talk to the man. “Do you speak English?”

_“Mane samajatu nathi.”_ His voice was surprisingly deep and strong.

Yuuri tried again. _“_ _Nihongo wo hanasemasuka?”_

_[Why are you doing this? We don’t need language. Help me inside to my bed.]_

Falling silent, Yuuri allowed the man to hold his arm and escorted him to the neighboring shack, where he helped him to carefully lie down. Housing two people, this shelter was a little larger than Yuuri’s, and had a few more things in it. Apart from the beds, there was an extra cupboard that contained food and drink, if the empty cups and plates on top were any indication. Set up on a low table was some kind of altar with a long wooden stick incense holder, white tealight candles, a photo of a family that included Jignesh and this man, and two depictions of what Yuuri thought must be Hindu gods. One had an elephant’s head and one a monkey’s, and both were vividly colored and gilded in a style that was reminiscent of opulent Byzantine icons, though their expressions and postures seemed to exude liveliness and joy rather than religious solemnity. There were yellow and orange leis draped around the frames, and on a silver-colored plate were pink flower petals, dried fruit, and pieces of flat grayish-brown bread. Someone had affixed net curtains with lacy hems to the windows, which filled the room with a soft diffuse white glow.

_[What happened?]_ Yuuri sent, kneeling next to the bed.

The man lay still and quiet, looking at him with those large round eyes. _[I tripped on a root and twisted my ankle coming back from the lodge. I help prepare food there.]_

Yuuri paused for a moment, wondering why he’d never noticed that his own neighbour had ESP – and was adept at using it in this way. But when he thought about it, he suddenly realized it had always been on the periphery of his consciousness, but he’d been so distracted by other things that he’d been impervious to it. The feel if it, here and now, was stronger, but still familiar, like a scent that someone always wore.

_“Maru naam_ Rahul _che,”_ the man said, pointing to his chest. Then he pointed at Yuuri with raised eyebrows, bushy against a deeply lined forehead.

It was always difficult to send specific pieces of information via ESP, and names were certainly no exception, which was what Yuuri assumed he was talking about. “Rahul,” he echoed, pointing back at the man, feeling a little niff in the process.

“Rahul Patel.”

Yuuri nodded and pointed at himself, pausing. What name should he give? Maybe it would be all right to be honest. It had been a long time since he’d heard anyone speak it aloud. “Yuuri Katsuki,” he said. _[But it’s a secret here. They can’t know.]_

_[They call you…]_ “John.”

“Yes.”

_[I’ll use your real name when we’re alone. My grandson…]_

_[Can use it too when no one else is around.]_ “Jignesh?”

He nodded.

_[I’d better find you some help for your ankle.]_

Just then, Jignesh entered the shack, and started in surprise when he saw Yuuri. He spoke in the Indian language with Rahul, both of them mentioning “Yuuri” and “John.” Jignesh was tall and lanky, with large long-fingered hands, and kept shooting suspicious glances at Yuuri.

“Do you speak English?” Yuuri asked him.

“Of course I do. _Dada_ says he fell and twisted his ankle, and you brought him to his bed.”

“That’s right. Do you know if there’s a doctor here?”

“I know where one lives; I’ll go see if she’s in. Will you stay with him?”

Yuuri nodded. “What language were you both speaking?”

“Gujarati,” Jignesh replied on his way back out. “That’s where we’re from.” Then he was gone again.

_[Can I get you a drink?]_ Yuuri sent, looking into Rahul’s eyes. They had an aura of youth that shone against the surrounding dark folds of skin.

_[In the cupboard. Help yourself too.]_

Yuuri stood and went to it, pulling out a carafe of a white liquid that was thicker than milk. “This?” he asked, holding it up, and Rahul nodded. Yuuri took two glasses from a shelf inside the cupboard and filled them, bringing one to Rahul, who propped himself up against the tin wall behind him. Yuuri took a tentative sip. It tasted like salty yogurt.

“Lassi,” Rahul said, pointing to Yuuri’s glass. Then he took a hearty swig of his own.

“It’s good,” Yuuri said. “But I have no idea how to say that in Gujarati. Um…” _[It’s good.]_

They both laughed.

“Thank you,” Yuuri said.

“ _Shukriya._ Thank you.”

“ _Shukriya._ ” _[How long have you been able to do this?]_

_[Most of my life.]_

_[Can you do anything else? Affect the physical world? Tell the future?]_

_[Walk across a bed of hot coals? Talk with the dead? Levitate?]_ Rahul gave him a warm smile. He was missing a couple of teeth.

Yuuri felt the humor in his words and he huffed a laugh as he smiled back. _[I guess that’s what I’m asking, yes.]_

_[Then the answer is no. There’s never been a need. Isn’t this wonderful in itself?]_

Yuuri thought for a moment. _[Can your grandson do it?]_

_[No. Not yet, anyway. Though who knows about the future. He’s young yet.]_

Yuuri finished his drink, then took the empty glasses. _[I’ll go rinse these at the pump.]_

_[Leave them for now.]_ Yuuri put them on top of the cupboard and returned to his kneeling position beside the bed. _[I get the idea that you’ve been doing this from a very young age.]_

Yuuri nodded. _[It’s ended up…getting me into trouble. It’s been hard.]_

Rahul gazed at him thoughtfully. _[You’re on your own here.]_

Yuuri swallowed, then looked down.

_[You shouldn’t eat so much crap, you know. It’s not good for you.]_

Suddenly Yuuri’s eyes shot back up in surprise. Then a grin spread across his face, and he laughed despite himself. _[You’re right. And yes, I know.]_

_[We’ll have to spend some time together, you and I.]_

_[I’d like that]_ , Yuuri sent, feeling a happy bubble growing in his chest. Then realized how long it had been since anything like that had happened. Since he’d even smiled. “ _Shukriya_ ,” he said.

_[Why are you thanking me?]_

_[Because…it’s so good to talk.]_

_[Yes, it is.]_

There was a string of incomprehensible language from behind, and Yuuri turned to the door to see Jignesh with a woman wearing brown pants and a white blouse, her blond hair pinned up in a bun.

“If you could just move and let me have a look?” she said to Yuuri as the two men spoke.

“Yeah, sure.” He turned to Rahul. _[I’ll come again.]_

He nodded and said _“Avjo”_ with a wave.

Jignesh followed him outside. “Thanks for taking care of him.”

“No problem.” He paused. “Look…I’m sorry I haven’t, you know, said much until now. I…well, I’ve had stuff going on – ”

“If you have a fake name, I guess there must be a reason. You don’t have to say anything else.”

Yuuri fell silent. As Jignesh nodded at him and then turned to go, he finally decided to say, “I just wanted to ask…They told me they wanted young adults here. You both…well, you seem a little out of place. What made you want to come?”

Jignesh turned to him again and gave a laugh with a hard undertone. “We didn’t ask to. We’re asylum seekers. The government settled us here, until they decide what to do with us. I don’t think they knew where else to put us. They’re supposed to make a decision on our case within six months of our arrival, so that gives them about four more months.”

“Asylum seekers?” Yuuri echoed in surprise.

“My grandfather…” He glanced at the open door of the shack, where the doctor was treating Rahul’s ankle. “…he’s stubborn. They’re making people get those brain chips in India; no one has any choice. At the same time, village committees and their leaders are being broken up. _Dada_ was one of those. He was resisting and being threatened. I knew about the offline communities in this country, so I helped him get here. And here we are.”

Yuuri shook his head, struggling to take it all in. “And he’s how old…?”

“Seventy-seven.”

“Jesus. He did all that – ”

“I told you, he’s stubborn.” He gave Yuuri a glare that flashed brief hot fire. “I am, too.”

“I can imagine.”

Jignesh’s keen eyes narrowed. “I meant to ask you…you two weren’t making a sound when I got here, but it seemed to me like you were communicating.” Before Yuuri could think of an answer, he went on, “Was he doing that mind-reading thing with you? You know, where you send thoughts to each other?”

“Uh…that’s sort of what it is. Yes.”

“Good.” Jignesh looked him up and down with sudden stern approval, which made him seem older than his sixteen years. “That’ll make him happy. It’s rare for him to meet anyone else who can do that. Come back and talk to him soon – and be kind. He may be stubborn, but he’s still an old man.”

“He doesn’t need to be old to deserve kindness,” Yuuri replied.


	31. Chapter 31

Yuuri sat on the earthen floor, leaning back against the metal frame of the bed while Rahul lay propped up in it. They were drinking lassi again. The Patels made their own. They also kept a small stock of food to put on the altar. Yuuri hadn’t asked about that, though his eyes naturally wandered to it while he was here, a colorful collection of beautiful and exotic objects in otherwise nondescript surroundings. He’d come a few times, as now, in the evening. Sometimes Jignesh was around, and at others he wandered off, occasionally to return briefly with one or more male companions before leaving again. Rahul’s ankle was bandaged. He could move around, but not far, and Yuuri could sense his frustration while he healed.

In turn, Rahul had picked up on Yuuri’s curiosity about his homeland and his journey to California, which flamed his desire to tell his story. And he was more talented at sharing images than any presences Yuuri had ever experienced. They felt less fuzzy and dreamlike, more concrete, like he was digging up his own memories of places he’d been. It would never be like watching TV or a film, because the mind’s eye did not work that way; but he could see the glaringly blue sky on baking hot days, magnificently carved temples of white and gold, festivals on riverbanks thronged with dark-haired people in swatches of bright clothing like a paint palette. Fields, oxen, floods. Mango trees and bazaars. He heard different languages and understood what was being said. Shared Rahul’s feelings about family and friends – usually warm and caring, though occasionally angry, disappointed, frustrated; all the things that formed the tapestry of close relationships. Followed the inner workings of thoughts and feelings, and outer negotiations with other elders and community members, as important decisions were made.

Until it had all come crashing down with the imposition of the chip and a state that wanted control over its citizens. Advertised as the supreme cutting-edge form of entertainment, tool of communication, and personal organizer and enabler that would make modern living a ceaseless joy, it was also being offered cheap, so that almost everyone could afford it. Rahul and many others did not believe the propaganda, but had ultimately been powerless against its spread; and soon each of them had been forced to decide between reluctantly embracing the technology and uprooting themselves to a new place where they would be free to live according to their principles. Yuuri got a taste of the hardship of leaving behind everyone he knew and loved, apart from the boy who guided him, and could empathize. They’d journeyed by train and on foot to Shanghai, where they’d boarded a ship to California. Though it had been a long and difficult trek for someone his age, Rahul had at least been able to enter the country legally, as he and Jignesh had gathered proof before they’d left of having been persecuted for their way of life. Their lawyer said they had a good case.

Though it had been overwhelming at times to feel the mixture of emotions Rahul shared as he relived all of this, Yuuri also felt more alive than he had since he’d left Boston. He’d only traveled on trains from the U.S. to this place. And he was young, and had money. He knew Rahul believed that what he himself had endured had been worthwhile; that he was embarking upon a new adventure in a life that he’d thought had been drawing to a mundane and uneventful close. It made Yuuri wonder how the two of them could have arrived with such different attitudes.

  _[What do you think of it here?]_ Yuuri sent as he sipped his drink, his eyes resting again on the items on the altar. There was a pause, and Yuuri glanced up at him.

_[I get the feeling you honestly want to know, but that you also want to tell me how awful you think it is.]_

Yuuri laughed mirthlessly. _[My experience of it hasn’t been very good. For a commune, they don’t communicate much.]_

_[That’s true. There’s no sense of community here. No connection. Not like in my village. But it’s a place to be. An experience. It’s not so bad, for me, or my grandson…He thinks I don’t know about the woman here who took his virginity as casually as you’d tie your shoelaces.]_

Yuuri smiled at the flickers of images and feelings that accompanied the knowledge he was sent. A winsome young blond woman, still significantly older than Jignesh, with a come-hither look in her eyes. One hot, heavy wave of desire that peaked and faded. Bending over in the morning to tie your shoelaces.

  _[There’s no harm in it,]_ Rahul continued. _[I’m not worried about him here. He’s a sensible young man.]_

Yuuri was surprised at what struck him as a liberal attitude for one of his age.

Rahul picked up on this. _[What, do you think someone becomes a village leader by being as rigid in his attitudes as a dry twig?]_ This was followed by a hoarse laugh that shattered the silence.

_[I wish I’d known you in Boston.]_

There was a pause while Rahul seemed to be thinking. _[You have a lot of strong feelings about that place, and people there. I thought at first you might be from Japan, and want to show me, like I showed you Gujarat. But you moved away when you were very young, didn’t you? And never returned.]_

Yuuri sighed and nodded his head. The blistering honesty of this method of communication could be draining, even disturbing.

_[I’d like it if you shared Boston with me. If it’s something you want to do.]_

Yuuri stared up at him, his emotions in an impossible tangle. But he nodded again. Did his best to send images and impressions of white, clinical Building 46, with its atrium, labs, lecture halls. His office. The Great Dome. The river. Downtown. A baseball game. His apartment. The people he associated with these places came and went with them. He wasn’t sure how much Rahul wanted to know about them…or how much he wanted to tell him.

_[You send these to me as if it’s an old-fashioned slide show.]_

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. _[What do you mean?]_

_[Like you’re trying to remove the feelings from them. Sending me a travel guide. Even the people. Do you not have a family? They don’t seem to be in your thoughts.]_

His eyes flicked back down to the floor. _[We’re…estranged.]_

_[There must be someone you care for. My son and daughter, I had to leave behind in Gujarat.]_

_[I saw them – you showed me. You miss them.]_

_[And I miss my wife. But she died years ago. I have my grandson here. That counts for a great deal. He gave up a lot to come with me.]_

Yuuri just nodded and cleared their empty glasses away. _[Is that them in your photo?]_ he sent, looking at it on the altar.

Rahul nodded and sent information about who each of them was, and spoke their names aloud. _[But you can’t tell me someone like you has never cared for another. Was there anyone in Boston?]_

Thoughts flashed in Yuuri’s mind. He tried to keep them to himself, but the gateway way still open between them, and he knew Rahul was watching.

_[The blue-eyed blond man. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him in you. You think about him a lot, but…you don’t want to.]_ There was a questioning note to this.

Yuuri took a shaky breath. The sharp edge of it was always just below the surface, waiting to emerge and open new wounds.

_“Ahi aavo,_ Yuuri, _”_ Rahul said aloud, gesturing for Yuuri to come close and sit next to him. After a brief hesitation, Yuuri did so, and was surprised to see Rahul stretch out a hand, palm up. Yuuri placed his own hand on top, and Rahul pulled it to him and patted it comfortingly. Yuuri couldn’t help but smile. _[Now. Tell me. What happened with him?]_

So Yuuri did; with places, as with people, imparting the essence of them rather than their names. He sent the knowledge of how he and Victor had worked together at MIT…and had, he thought, fallen in love. How Yuuri had come to trust him more than anyone else in his life. But Victor had betrayed that trust. He sensed Rahul’s mind going through possible reasons for why Yuuri might have responded so drastically, though he was too polite to ask more openly. Cheating on him with someone else? Broke up with him? Shared some secret he’d been entrusted with?

Yuuri shook his head. _[Don’t try to guess. I found out he’s a member of an organization that persecutes people with ESP. Makes them have an operation to block it, or kills them. Other people from that organization chased me out of Boston; they were shooting at me.]_ He felt the realization in Rahul that this was the reason why Yuuri was here, by himself, using a false name. _[That’s right. I couldn’t believe it myself. It’s still hard. I never thought Victor had it in him to do such things.]_ He felt the familiar confusing waves of love and anger that always accompanied these thoughts. How could he ever reconcile the man who’d hammed it up in a bar with a Bronx accent, given him a lucky horseshoe from his Cracker Jack box, brought him chocolate Spartak cake; whose eyes had seemed so full of warmth and love when they gazed at him, with…with an agent from the Coughlin Institute who hunted people down? How could they be one and the same person? A tremble ran through his body, and he wiped away a tear, then felt Rahul squeeze his hand.

_[You have a lot of strong feelings about this. I think you love this man, and you’re angry because you tell yourself you shouldn’t, and it doesn’t work.]_

Yuuri let out a quiet sob. _[Oh…I miss him.]_

Rahul stared at him pointedly. _[Did he come after you himself?]_

_[Does it matter? He’s one of them.]_

_[Did you ask him about this, the last time you saw him?]_

“What does it matter?” Yuuri demanded aloud, jerking his hand away. He sniffled while Rahul made a harrumphing sound, as if he were considering what to make of Yuuri’s outburst. “I…I’m sorry.” He sighed. _[I’m sorry.]_

_[Your heart…]_ He tapped his chest with an open hand to emphasize the point. _[…it says that he wouldn’t do this. Maybe you should listen. Maybe it’s possible you don’t understand the entire picture.]_

Yuuri knitted his brows, frowning, and then shook his head. _[It’s just wishful thinking.]_

“Hmm.” He sounded disapproving. _[If he cares about you…don’t you think your disappearance is hurting him?]_

_[If he cares…? He doesn’t. He can’t. But…even if that were the case, I can’t call him. They’d listen in over his chip and trace where I was. Anyway, I know what he’d say. The same things he said when I saw him the last time. He told me that I’m sick. Paranoid. He wants me to get an operation to block what he says are the symptoms. For all I know, he was planning to kill me himself.]_

Rahul considered again. _[You don’t really believe that.]_

_[I don’t know_ what _to believe.]_ Yuuri wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. The linen-colored hemp was rough against his hot cheeks. _[But if he really is hurting? That makes two of us. I guess that’s the way it has to be. He’s an enemy.]_

Rahul sighed. _[I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.]_  

_[I feel the same about you.]_

The old man suddenly stirred and sat up straight, then climbed out of bed and walked over to the altar on the table. Yuuri watched as he picked up a cigarette lighter and lit the candles and an incense stick. The aroma often pervaded Yuuri’s clothes now, but he didn’t mind; it was like being in a temple, which somehow made him feel safe, and in contact with something beyond himself and his problems.

_[I’m going to do one of our daily ceremonies. I’ll teach you a mantra for removing obstacles. It helps me and maybe it will help you. Or you could walk away if you want. You decide.]_

_[Why would I walk away?]_

_[That’s what you do if you don’t like something, isn’t it?]_

Yuuri felt a rankle in the pit of his stomach. _[I don’t think that’s fair. You left your home, too, when people came after you.]_

_[But I made sure everyone understood why, and I went with their blessing.]_

“You…you have no idea,” Yuuri muttered.

Rahul just grinned and prepared a bowl of sugared almonds from the cupboard, which he placed on the silver tray on the table. Then he picked up one of the little candles, moved it in circles in front of the altar, and chanted in a soft low voice, over and over, _“Om gum Ganapatayei namah.”_ Yuuri didn’t understand; but as he watched the flickering light glide through the air in Rahul’s hand, he allowed himself be lulled into a light trance, and found himself murmuring along with the words. It was soothing somehow.

When Rahul was done, he left the incense and candles to burn while he brought the bowl of almonds over to the bed, sitting down and taking some to eat and then passing the bowl to Yuuri. _[This food has been blessed. Maybe it will help, too.]_

“ _Shukriya_ ,” Yuuri answered as he took some, sensing that this was an honor. The almonds made his sweet tooth tingle. He hadn’t been stuffing himself as full of bakery goods over the past few days, but he had a stash of chocolates and cookies and knew he was having far too many of those. Sometime soon he would simply have to buckle down and go through the painful slog of getting his eating back on track…if he still had the ability to do so, after all the damage he’d reinflicted on himself.

_[You look very glum, my friend,]_ Rahul sent as he took the almonds back and ate more.

Yuuri warmed to the thought of being considered this man’s friend. _[It’s nothing. There are just problems I have to work out.]_

_[With these mantras, it’s believed that not only are you invoking the help of a god, but that the words themselves make vibrations that purify you, open your heart, and send your intentions out into the universe to harmonize with it. You should say the one to yourself for removing obstacles. I’ll teach you another.] “Om namah Shivaya,”_ he said aloud, several times, with Yuuri repeating it. _[This means I honor the divinity within myself. Do this, and trusting people won’t be so…hurtful or frightening to you, maybe. Because it will be easier for you to give it to those who deserve it, and you won’t feel so devastated when it’s been betrayed. Right now you feel like this would tear you into pieces; but nothing can do that. You still are who you are. Are you following me?]_

_[I think so,]_ Yuuri sent as the bowl of almonds was passed back to him for another helping. Though he thought it would require some reflection for him to be sure.

_[I don’t know about this organization that’s after you. But maybe it’s worth thinking some more about this blue-eyed blond-haired man. Instinct – what you know in your heart – can be a powerful guide.]_

Yuuri chewed, looking down. _[Scientists don’t trust that. It’s not always a reliable indicator of reality. In fact, it’s often wrong.]_

_[Is it?]_ Rahul raised an eyebrow. _[Then you can’t be listening properly.]_

_[I wish it was that simple.]_ Yuuri sighed and watched the tendrils of thin gray smoke curl up from the incense stick until they diffused against the walls of the shack.

***

He spent some time almost every evening at the Patels’ shack from then onward, while Rahul was more or less confined there by his injury; though after a week, he began walking further with his son’s help or Yuuri’s. It felt to Yuuri like Jignesh was gradually warming to him, even when the protracted silences in which he and Rahul exchanged meaningful looks or suddenly burst into laughter were obviously disconcerting. Yuuri became practiced at exchanging knowledge like this. It was faster than talking. You never had to search for the right word. Language wasn’t a barrier. Although the dreamlike nature of it all meant that the messages could still be ambiguous, they were never short of time to try different ways of showing and explaining until the meaning came across.

Yuuri decided to teach Rahul how to disable a piece of electronic kit. He’d bought a couple of old tablets from the antique shop that still functioned, and made one of them explode into sparks. It took several practice sessions before Rahul could accomplish it himself, and when he did, Yuuri lavished praise on him. He shooed Yuuri away, pretending that it was nothing important, though his eyes sparkled. However, Yuuri soon realized that while Rahul was pleased with himself, he did not see any practical applications for his newfound ability. After all, it was easy enough to damage equipment like this by swinging a hammer at it, for example. The real skill lay in putting it back together again and making it work, he said. He could not seem to believe that anyone would ever threaten himself or Jignesh with a laser gun, even though Yuuri had shared his own memories of his flight from Boston as vividly as he could. To his grudging amusement, Rahul wanted to relive the trip on the hoverboard with him over and over, since that was what really captured his interest.

Not wanting to crowd the Patels out as a third resident of their shack, Yuuri still spent more time than he would have liked in his own by himself. Sometimes, while he sat in the doorway with his feet stretched outside, he almost thought he could detect the leaves of the nearby oak trees changing color, a little more each day as October settled in. The afternoons could still be warm, but the nights quickly cooled. Sometimes a brown and tan striped lizard would go skittering by. He hadn’t made a conscious point of learning the two mantras Rahul had taught him, but they’d stayed with him anyway; and when there was nothing else for his brain to do, he chanted them mentally. It was calming, and kept the churning thoughts and feelings at bay somewhat. They were almost melodic when he murmured them aloud.

He was more conscious now of Jignesh’s comings and goings as well, and they frequently had brief words with each other as the teen passed by. He owned some sleek black and red Chinese-style clothing, which he would often don at night when he left the commune with friends; there were restaurants and a few clubs in La Jolla Amago where youngsters liked to hang out. Yuuri wondered, if Jignesh was caught, whether he’d be forced to burn the clothes, and told him to be careful; though a sixteen-year-old who had been able to smuggle himself and his grandfather into another country thousands of kilometers away was, he was certain, in no need of such advice anyway. Although he was eight years older, Yuuri sometimes felt like he was a whole generation removed from Jignesh and his companions. There was nothing anyone could do or say that would compel him onto a dance floor, or even into a bar. His heart ached. And the food he was eating, both at the lodge and in his shack, made him feel sluggish in mind and body. The brief consolation of a wedge of cheesecake would rebound later, when he felt like a piece of chewing gum that someone had plucked from their mouth, stretched out wide, and then thrown against a wall. He was no longer sending himself into food comas, and the weight wasn’t piling on as quickly, but a slower downward spiral still led to the same end. Tears trickled down his cheeks sometimes just before he ate, as he wondered why he was doing this to himself, thinking _I can still say no and throw this away_ ; knowing he wouldn’t.

One Saturday afternoon, as Yuuri was hanging some clothes he’d washed on a line of twine strung between his shack and the nearest tree, Jignesh trudged by, saying he was going to the lodge to make some chapatis, mainly to use for prashad – the food they left on the altar to be blessed. Though he could bring some back for Yuuri if he wanted. Yuuri had to stop himself from automatically rejecting the offer because he didn’t eat bread. He’d been eating more _sweetened_ bread products than most other people would probably eat in a day, so what did it really matter? He nodded and thanked him.

“Hey, Yuuri,” Jignesh said in his usual quiet way before he left, like he was full of secrets and was deciding which to choose to speak and how, “you ever played baseball?”

Yuuri just looked at him, unable to guess where this was going. “Why?”

“They say they’re getting a couple of teams together here at the commune, starting next weekend,” Jignesh replied with a nonchalant shrug. “The charity sponsoring our asylum application got me a glove, but I think there might be some spares too, where they keep all the sports equipment here. Something to do, you know?”

“Yeah, thanks, Jignesh. I’ll think about it.” Yuuri gave him a smile, and with a quick wave he was gone.

He’d seen the soccer teams playing in a field on the southern edge of the commune but hadn’t thought anything of it; he’d never been a soccer fan. Instead, he’d mapped out a jogging route for exercise instead, though often he was too tired after a day of brick-making and house-building to go. Like Jignesh, he’d slipped into the nearby town and bought himself an outfit, though these were sports clothes and a pair of tennis shoes. And he took them out with him in his backpack and only put them on when he was well away from prying eyes that might tell tales back at the commune. He felt better for running sometimes, but knew he was still taking in more calories than he was burning, and was ultimately playing a losing game.

Maybe, if they really were organizing baseball teams here, it would be another way to pass the time. _Maybe_ he might even enjoy it. He’d never told anyone outside his own family that he’d played when he was a boy. In fact, he’d been a decent first baseman and had a good batting average. But eventually he was carrying so much extra weight that he was slow running around the bases and fielding; and when the encouragement and respect of his teammates melted into abuse, he’d quit. He’d been, what…about ten years old. That was the last time he’d ever been part of the action on a baseball diamond.

Something flickered excitedly to life in his chest at the memory of the sweet spot of the bat whacking the ball and sending it over the outfielders’ heads; at the smell of the oiled leather glove, its soft interior molded to his hand, like an extension of himself as he planted a toe on the base and stretched for the ball, which would land in the webbed pocket with a satisfying thunk.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to try.

***

But before anything else, he was determined to get his eating back on track. He owed it to himself. He wanted to _respect_ himself again. This was not who he was. _Om namah Shivaya._

Breakfast at the lodge was usually hopeless; a feast of carbohydrates. He decided to give up on that completely and just eat in his shack. For lunch and dinner, he planned to check and see what was on offer at the lodge first, and then leave to dip into his own provisions if necessary.

Several people at the commune raised chickens. He bought eggs from them and boiled them at the lodge, then brought them back to the shack in a basket. A nearby farm had a herd of dairy cows and made its own cheese, and he decided to keep a stock of that as well. Nuts and berries could be gathered in the wild at this time of year, he’d noticed. There were always raw fruits and vegetables available from the lodge, or stored in the commune’s barns. He still missed having meat, but did not trust himself to walk into a store and buy nothing more damaging to himself than that.

Yuuri understood the science of addiction and withdrawal. How until his neurotransmitter receptors adjusted to the new equilibrium, shifting from the desensitized state they were in by upregulating, he would feel awful, and be tempted to end the awfulness with the very substance that caused it in the first place. Scientific knowledge didn’t translate into control over his body, however. As far as he was aware, there was no way of causing the receptors to upregulate any faster. If someone made a discovery in that area, the leaps forward that could be made in the treatment of addictions of all kinds…Well, he could dream, even if his own days of coming up with research ideas to carry out himself might be behind him. Though that was still an almost intolerably grim thought.

The first couple of days weren’t too bad. But then, he knew they never were. His system was balanced between still having sugar in it and not being bombarded with unhealthy foods. It was the best of both worlds. For a brief time.

By the fourth day, he was uncomfortable. His work with the adobe kept him occupied, and he also went jogging; but the spells when he was alone were worse than ever, his body aching and craving, his thoughts jumbling. Little things that never used to bother him became irritating. The wind blowing through the gaps in the tin walls, above and below, interrupted his sleep. Frustration blazed up within him when the lodge served a meal that was so far removed from paleo that he had to return to his shack to eat, even though he was thankful he could at least do that. Why did they assume everyone would be happy with whatever dish they served up? There was never any choice – you had it, or parts of it, or you didn’t. During the weeks he’d been here, he’d become aware that their idea of a commune was a kind of hive mind ruled by a select few people who made some pretense at democracy. In reality, they made the decisions, and expected everyone to fall into line without complaining. In Yuuri’s opinion, that wasn’t how a commune ought to operate. In fact, it ran rather contrary to a lot of ideas about fairness he’d assumed they would have. Though of course he’d had no previous experience of such things.

It all bit and scratched at his raw nerves. He hadn’t wanted to inflict his moodiness on the Patels; but in the end his desire for company and relief from the war he was waging against himself won out. When Rahul did his ritual in front of the altar, which Jignesh told him was called puja, and then offered him bread and more sugared almonds, he felt compelled to give a reason for declining, fearing that his host would otherwise be insulted.

_[I have a problem with food,]_ he sent; and the images he dug up pulled long-buried memories along with them, like the soil clinging to the roots of a weed. Memories he never wanted to confront again. Of perpetually disappointed parents. Being laughed at in P.E. lessons at school, and always being picked last for teams. Trying to test the waters of his sexuality, to find that it only invited ridicule. The baggy, unflattering clothes he wore. The self-loathing when he felt he couldn’t take it anymore and started eating for comfort again, knowing at the same time that it was going to make everything worse. He didn’t intend to send any of this to Rahul, but he knew it was bubbling inside of him, and that the other man must be getting some tinge of it in his emotions.

_[I noticed,]_ came the gentle response. _[Food means many things to you, I think. But sometimes you get stuck in a bad pattern with it.]_

_[Yes.]_

_[You can keep coming here. Even when you’re not at your best. What kind of friend would send another away for that reason?]_

Yuuri was sitting in his accustomed place on the floor, leaning against the bed frame. Rahul was on the mattress, eating some of the bread and almonds, though his ankle was almost healed by now and he didn’t need any more bed rest. It was still more comfortable for a seventy-seven-year-old than the hard earth of the shack, Yuuri reckoned. _[I don’t want to impose],_ he sent.

_[Nonsense. For a scientist, you can be so silly sometimes.]_

Yuuri burst out laughing.

Three evenings later, however, he wouldn’t have been able to laugh at the funniest joke in the world if he’d tried. He knew it would get better soon. It _had_ to. It always did in the past. Patience was what he needed; but it was in short supply.

Again, he’d been avoiding the Patels that evening, but finally decided that it was going to have to be a choice between their company or giving in and giving up. And he couldn’t do that; because if he let himself be defeated by this, and allowed himself to keep sliding…no, it was unthinkable.

“Namaste,” Rahul said when Yuuri knocked on the door and then walked in. Jignesh was there, but he was dressed in his clubbing clothes, which meant he was planning to go out.

“Namaste,” Yuuri replied.

“Want to come with me?” Jignesh asked him. “Like there’s ever anything else to do around here anyway. But it could be fun. There’s people there your age. Do you dance?”

“Uh, thanks, but no.”

 Jignesh shrugged, said something in Gujarati to Rahul, then went out the door, leaving it to swing shut with a clang behind him.

_[Sorry,]_ Yuuri began, but Rahul leaped in.

_[You think that a lot. Always apologizing for something. What is it this time?]_

Yuuri gave him a sheepish little smirk. _[I mean it. I’m not in a good mood. It’s hard right now. But I couldn’t sit by myself. I’m sorry.]_ He sat down on the ground and fidgeted with his fingers.

_[There’s a lot of anxious energy coming off you tonight, my friend.]_

_[Yes. I can’t concentrate on anything. I tried the mantras. I went jogging, but I can’t jog all night. There isn’t much else to do here.]_

Rahul made the humphing noise he often did when he wanted to take a moment to ponder something. _[Show me how to do something else with ESP?]_

_[I can hardly concentrate to communicate with you. I’m sorry.]_

_[Show me some of your memories?]_

_[They’re mostly sad. Or they wouldn’t interest you.]_

“Hmph.” _[You’re in a bad way tonight.]_

Yuuri sighed and folded his arms across his chest.

_[It’s a problem that there isn’t much to do here. This place isn’t run properly. I could show them many things if they’d let me. There are some friendship groups, I’ve noticed, but they keep to themselves.]_

_[They don’t make people feel welcome. I’ve had friendlier receptions at conferences where I’ve had to defend papers against people who wanted to find faults in them.]_ The Oxford professor’s image suddenly swam into view. It was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about right now.

_[A whole life you’ve left behind. It must have been very jarring, coming here.]_

Yuuri took a shaky breath. _[The worst part was having the chip removed. That moment was like saying goodbye to everything and everyone I cared about, because I can’t be part of that world anymore.]_

_[Now I’m the one who should say sorry,]_ Rahul sent as Yuuri bowed his head, placed a hand over his face, and let a quiet sob escape. “ _Maff karjo._ Sorry.”

“It’s OK.” Yuuri sniffed.

_[What can we do to get your mind off things? Will you say mantras with me?]_

Yuuri shook his head. _[I’m sorry. I’m not in the mood.]_

_[I could teach you some Gujarati. Or better, you could teach me some English. My grandson tries sometimes, but he’s not a very good teacher, though I love him dearly.]_

_[I’m not sure I’m a very good teacher either.]_

_[When you say that, I see many young faces looking at you, listening to you. You’re too hard on yourself.]_

This time Yuuri put both hands to his face, and more tears flowed. _[That used to be the part of the week I hated most. Teaching my class. Now I wish I had it back. I wish I had all of it back. Why did this happen? Why…am…I…here…]_ His thoughts broke into pieces and he stopped sending them. Rahul sat quietly; Yuuri knew he was sending more thoughts in return, but the effort to read them was too great. He grimaced and shook his head. “I can’t do this. You’re very kind, but…it’s just hopeless. I…I’m going to have to give up.” He stood and began to reach for his backpack.

Rahul scooted forward on his bed and looked at him with blazing eyes. “Yuuri. _Besavu_.” He pointed to the floor.

“You don’t understand. I _can’t._ ” He couldn’t believe he was raising his voice to an old man, but he didn’t feel in control. It frightened him.

_[SIT.]_

He sank to his knees, looking at the ground, marshaling what energy he could to communicate. _[I’ve lost…everything…can’t cope. Nothing here for me. Hurts…everything hurts.]_ His tears fell silently into the dirt, making dark brown spots.

Rahul sat and considered, pressing the fingers of one hand to his lined forehead, his mouth turned down in a frown. Finally he sent, _[You know that going out to get more food won’t help. It will end up hurting more.]_

“I don’t know what else to do,” Yuuri choked out.

Rahul seemed to pick up on the gist of his meaning. _[I’m not an expert in this. But I’d like to help. I think this will pass, and soon maybe you’ll feel better. So tell me, if you’re full of healthy food, will it be easier to resist the pull of the junk food for now? Maybe there’s something here you could eat?]_

Yuuri sighed and wiped at his face with his sleeve. _[I’m not hungry. Craving isn’t the same as hungry.]_

_[But if you’re full…]_

_[It’s not logical.]_

“Hmph.” _[I crave sometimes, too. But it’s because I miss the good food back home. There are no Indians here besides my grandson and myself. He doesn’t mind eating veggie burgers and shepherd’s pie. I don’t like them. No one here even knows how to make a samosa.]_

Yuuri was silent for a moment, raising his head to look at him.

_[I do,]_ he sent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vegetable samosas – Yuuri loves them (and so do I). The filling can be made of almost anything, and the spices are endlessly variable too. The recipe below calls for potatoes and peas, but feel free to experiment with things like cauliflower, carrots, paneer, ground meat, leftover curry, and so on. Most people also buy filo pastry (or samosa pastry, in Asian stores) and save themselves the bother of making it – but the one for this recipe works well. The filling is lovely on its own, too, as a side dish.
> 
> Vegetable samosas
> 
> _Pastry_  
>  300g/10oz. (2 cups) plain flour  
> 4 tbsp vegetable oil  
> Pinch of salt  
> 90ml/6 tbsp water
> 
> _Filling_  
>  750g/1.75lb potatoes (white or sweet), finely diced  
> 250g/9oz (1 2/3 cups) shelled peas  
> 2 tbsp vegetable oil   
> 1 tbsp black mustard seeds  
> 2 tsp cumin seeds  
> 2 tsp garam masala  
> 1 tsp cayenne pepper  
> 1 medium onion, finely chopped  
> 4cm/1 ½ inch piece fresh gingerroot, finely chopped  
> 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped  
> 4 fresh hot green chili peppers, seeded and finely chopped  
> 1 tsp salt  
> 100ml/3.5 fl oz water  
> Juice of ½ lemon  
> 30g/1.75oz (2/3 cup) fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, finely chopped
> 
> _Instructions_  
>  Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in the oil until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs, then slowly add the water to make a stiff dough. Put the dough in an oiled plastic bag, or a clean covered oiled bowl, to rest for at least 30 minutes. 
> 
> Make the filling. Heat the oil on medium and add the mustard seeds, then cover the pan. When the mustard seeds start to pop, add the cumin seeds and stir a few times. Add garam masala, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, onion, ginger, garlic and chili peppers; cook until soft. Add potatoes, salt and water. Cover and simmer until potatoes are cooked but still somewhat firm, about 10 minutes (sweet potatoes take less time than white); add the peas in the final minute or two. If desired, crush gently with a potato masher, but leave the mixture fairly chunky. Stir in the chopped (cilantro) and lemon juice. Allow to cool.
> 
> Roll out the dough until thin and cut into circles about 18cm/7 inches in diameter. Cut each circle in half and fold over to form a cone. Seal the long edge with water and, using a fork, press down on the seam to make it stronger. Lift up the cone, open it out, and fill it with the potato mixture. Do not fill too full or it will be difficult to repeat the sealing procedure with the top. 
> 
> Deep-fry the samosas until they are golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and serve plain or with chutneys, pickles and/or raita. Makes about 14.


	32. Chapter 32

_Why can’t they have some kind of access to the Cloud here at the commune? Honestly, all I want is recipes without having to buy cookbooks._

Yuuri had spent the morning making paneer and preparing vegetables and spices for dinner, while the usual crew cooked porridge for breakfast. They’d been worried at first that the onion-and-garlic aroma hanging in the air might infuse their own mixture, but when that turned out not to be the case, they’d tolerated him working there. He supposed he ought to be grateful. Tamagoyaki, Japanese omelettes, were planned for lunch, along with salad and fresh fruit. That would be quick and easy compared to mattar paneer, Indian peas and cheese, along with samosas. He’d never usually bothered in the past to turn milk into the mild lumps of curd himself, because he’d known where he could buy them in Boston. But if they were going to be vegetarian here, they needed a source of protein, and eggs and tofu could get monotonous. Paneer was a wonderful meat substitute in many Indian dishes, as well as being a feature in its own right.

As he worked, sweating despite the cooler weather today because of the many tasks he had on the go, he remembered that night a couple of weeks ago when he’d been at the end of his tether, and Rahul had stayed with him. Rahul came here to the lodge most mornings to help prepare food, and Yuuri had asked if he could come with him the following morning, blowing off the usual adobe jobs. The people in charge of the kitchen hadn’t minded, saying they were short-handed; and when Rahul and Yuuri were finished helping, they were allowed to remain and cook for themselves. More than all the sweet foods he’d bought, this really _was_ a treat, Yuuri thought. He hadn’t cooked anything in a kitchen since the last time he’d been in his apartment, and he was surprised at how much he’d missed being able to make just what he wanted, the way he wanted it, using whatever ingredients he chose.

Rahul was delighted to discover that Yuuri knew how to cook Indian food. He said it was mainly the women’s job in Gujarat, but he could help with preparation, and he was happy to make suggestions about certain ingredients and quantities that ought to go into a dish, and taste-test it until it seemed right. Yuuri familiarized himself with the foods and utensils in the kitchen, and made a list, mainly of spices, that he needed. Meadow was with the kitchen crew when they returned to cook lunch, and she seemed pleased when Yuuri volunteered to work there. It seemed that there had been some complaints about the bland food, and she had a feeling that the dishes Yuuri wanted to make would be popular. He now worked four long days a week preparing lunches and dinners, with help from Rahul, often Jignesh, and a few others. At first he made meals from memory, though eventually he sourced some cookbooks from stores in the village. He also had no previous experience of cooking very large batches of food, which had been a stressful learning journey under a couple of other stern female cooks who had taken him through what to do.

It was better than making bricks or building houses all day, though he continued to do those things as well on other days. In a way it felt like he was helping to take care of the people here, even if he was beginning to feel at the same time that he would never be any more a part of their world than he was of Boston or MIT now. He received many compliments on the food, and people often asked him what went into it, and if he would please cook it again. It was hot, grueling work. But it passed the time. And he was accomplishing something; even being creative in a way. He enjoyed working alongside Rahul as well, even if the older man was only there for an hour or two to peel and chop vegetables and advise on spice mixtures. Occasionally Yuuri found it frustrating that he would suggest a little more of this or that – he wasn’t sure, but it seemed like that was what his wife and daughter had done – wait, no that wasn’t quite right…ah, but _now_ it was; he could smell it and taste it. But it also made Yuuri laugh. Who better to advise him on how he was doing with his Indian cooking than an Indian, after all.

He was never tempted to overeat in the kitchen, either. Cooking there was his job. He refused to make desserts; others could do that, if they wanted. Besides, they didn’t tend to stock the kinds of foods that he was drawn to in that way, like bars of chocolate, or sweet creamy things. Store-bought cookies he would play Frisbee with before he’d ever eat one; and many of the boxed cakes sold on the shelves could probably survive one of those year-long chemistry experiments to see if they ever rotted if left to sit out, as full of e-numbers and preservatives as they were. When he saw Meadow or any of the other Elders, he was working on bringing them around to the idea that people would prefer more choice at mealtimes as well, in case they didn’t like one of the foods on offer, citing as a case in point his problems with breakfast. Money could be an issue here, however, and porridge was cheap; but he was determined to keep trying.

With a strict paleo diet and complete avoidance of sweet foods, even fruit for a while, Yuuri finally felt as if he’d managed to break the comfort-eating cycle once again. Though without Rahul’s help, he doubted if he would have been strong enough on his own; it might well have gotten the best of him in the end. The cravings still niggled, and he knew they would for a while; sometimes physiological, and sometimes a programmed response to dealing with uncomfortable emotions. But it seemed that four years of clean living had also become a habit – one he could slip back into as well; whose mantle was still warm and comfortable. For that he was deeply thankful. He kept up with the jogging several times a week, when it was light outside and he could find the time; and the waistband of his pants was gradually loosening again. The relief was immense, though he knew he would have to remain vigilant, because slips were so easy to make. That goddamn bakery in the town, for instance. He made sure he never walked past it when he was in the vicinity.

Maybe it was a small achievement in the grand scheme of things, though. Was the Coughlin Institute still after him? He continued to take surveillance cameras out just in case, but was beginning to fear that if he did it too often, perhaps they had the cunning to eventually take notice of that anomaly he was creating here. If they really were looking hard enough. It was tempting to think about trying to move on…to another offline community? He’d been through all these thoughts before; they kept circling around and around. He had Rahul here, but for how long? He had his kitchen job. But compared to the work he’d been doing at MIT…?

He wondered if Victor had carried on with their study, and his heart sank. The euphoria he’d felt upon Victor’s arrival. All the work they’d done together. The time and energy he’d put into worrying about whether someone like that could be romantically interested in him. His idol, for years. His friend. And then…his lover, if only briefly.

All of it, gone. All of it…a lie? He still wasn’t any closer to resolving that either, despite Rahul’s urging. Thinking about it always cut open fresh wounds. There weren’t any scars yet because the old ones hadn’t healed.

_I…I hope you can live with what you’re doing for that organization, Victor. Whatever it is. Maybe those operations of yours really are doing some people some good. I’d like to think so._

He was making more of an effort to be regular with his evening ESP sessions. Now that the food problems were no longer to the fore, and he had a friend here, he found it easier to allow himself to be alone in his shack and focus his mind. Nothing had changed; the presences still tended to wonder what the point was of disabling electronic equipment. He reminded himself that for the new ones, getting over their initial fear and coming to terms with what was happening to them was more important than any flink tricks he could teach them. He asked Rahul once if he did anything similar, but it seemed he was content with using the ESP as a form of communication, and a way of seeing or knowing additional things about the world. Presences didn’t find him like they found Yuuri. The scientist in Yuuri wished he could design a study on this and look for a reason why. He wondered if he would ever stop thinking about things in those terms.

One thing he did do differently was to guard personal information about himself. He’d never been openly forthcoming anyway, but now it seemed especially important to be cautious. Any of the presences he was in contact with could be chipped. While it couldn’t read your thoughts about someone else, it could certainly record your voice in a conversation. And any searches on the Cloud could be monitored. Either of those things could give away who he was, if the other person picked up on thoughts or images that were specific enough to betray his identity. It chilled him to think that someone like Crow, with ESP, was actively working to root out others of his kind. There might be more agents like him. Yuuri knew he couldn’t be too careful.  

The memory of being in that dance club and sending the ball of energy at the man who’d been hitting on Victor often came back to him. He tried to focus on what had been going on inside of him to cause that to happen; because no matter how good he got at damaging electronics, he was much less confident about getting it to work on people. The very thought horrified him; but then, if they were hunting him down or attacking him, it seemed like the perfect way to defend himself – apart from the stun gun, which he still carried in his pocket. How could he get it to work? And how would he know if he was doing the right thing, without anyone to practice on? How _could_ he practice anyway, without hurting anybody?

He had the idea, one day, that perhaps it would be ethically justifiable to try it on something alive but not human, maybe an animal. The next time he found himself near the large chicken coop, he wandered to the fence, leaned over the top, and spotted a chicken at random. Brown, with white flecks on its feathers.

_I can’t believe I’m doing this. I must be out of my fucking mind._

Shrugging it off, he gathered the energy in his abdomen the way he always did when he was taking out a camera. And sent it with as much force as he could imagine. Wondering if there might be a mess; if feathers would go flying.

Nothing. The critter was still doing its head-bobbing walk around the coop.

Sighing, Yuuri considered. What was he missing? He didn’t want to face it, but deep down he thought he knew. There had been something about the jealousy he’d felt at the time, maybe mixed with the indignity of having been insulted. How could that be replicated outside the heat of the moment, though? Could he really stand here and make himself angry at the chicken?

_The chicken is my enemy. Death to the chicken._

He hung his head and laughed.

_I am a complete gonk. No matter how desperate I am, it’s not enough to be doing this._

Shaking his head, he pulled back from the fence and went on his way.

***

Yuuri stretched himself as far as his limbs would allow, keeping a toe planted on the base while making a grab with his glove and snatching the ball centimeters from the ground. The thunk of it into the leather edged out the clomp of shoes across the base by perhaps a second. He stood gracefully as the umpire yelled “Out,” and tossed the ball back to the pitcher amid a little flurry of claps and shouts.

Yuuri wasn’t as rusty at this as he’d expected to be, which had surprised him, though his arm had ached for a while until he got used to throwing again. And a twenty-four-year-old body was noticeably stronger, faster and more coordinated than a ten-year-old one; an overweight one at that. This was…fun.

All right, he knew he shouldn’t need to do stuff like this to boost his self-esteem. It was just a game, and they weren’t exactly ready to play in the majors. But manning first base, and making good plays there, had always made him feel like a bit of a star. This was where a lot of the action was at. You never stood around, watching the sky and wondering about the weather, or idly studying the crowd, waiting for the ball to come your way; because that was what it did most of the time. And oh baby, when you helped make a double play, it was wicked swit.

He suddenly flinched inwardly while he stood and watched the next batter approach the plate. Was this really him? How long had it been since he’d felt like this? Since he’d been able to muster any real enthusiasm for anything? Jesus.

They were men and women of different ages on these two teams, just enough people to make up the numbers, and Yuuri knew that had included some pleading around the commune on the captains’ part. Their equipment – most of it used, but in good condition – had been a government grant. Someone had built a makeshift fence behind home plate to stop stray balls from disappearing and having to be chased down. There were benches along the first and third base lines for the teams, and others nearby for spectators, though there were usually only a handful of those. Maybe, as they continued to practice and play, more people would be interested in watching. Having just begun, and without any real training, Yuuri thought they weren’t half bad. Jignesh was the youngest member of his own team, playing short stop. They all wore their earth-colored clothes and shoes, though the women wore pants like the men; otherwise they seemed to prefer skirts and dresses, adding to the bizarre notion that they were all pretending to be pioneers from a couple of hundred years ago.

His teammates, he thought, still had a certain unapproachable quality, though that seemed to be the default mode of operating in the commune and so was nothing new. Still, they weren’t unfriendly. They cheered each other on, and cooperated as a team. Yuuri got the impression that in time, maybe he could come to count a few of them as friends. At the moment they tended to make small talk as they sat together on the bench. It felt gratifying to be respected again for being good at something, he had to admit. Although it had been six weeks or so since he’d left Boston and his job and everything else, it might as well have been a lifetime ago.  

There was no score yet when the third baseman caught a pop-up foul to end the inning, and Yuuri was second to bat; the leadoff hitter had gotten to first, and then run to second on an error. Yuuri saw him straying from the base out of the corner of his eye as he stepped up to the plate and brushed the dust off it with his toe; an old habit that suddenly resurfaced without conscious thought. Gave the bat some swings and limbered up his shoulders a little more – again, more out of habit than because they were necessarily useful actions. It had all formed a kind of little ritual, he remembered now, to calm the anxiety when he was young and had been doing this in front of his family and peers. But the nervous fluttery feelings weren’t there now. He settled into his stance and eyed the pitcher. Fortunately the ones each team had were decent, even if the speed of their pitches was a little slow; it made them easier to hit, which could make a more interesting game. Though when they started to struggle, there was no one else of the same caliber to substitute for them.

This jack, a pale man of about Yuuri’s age with sunburned cheeks and short strawberry-blond hair, was on form today. His first pitch was a strike, which Yuuri watched sail over the plate with feigned nonchalance. Lower than he liked to reach for them with the bat, and hanging on the outside corner. The second and third pitches were balls, which he also watched as they went by and into the catcher’s mitt. He felt like making the pitcher work, and sweat a little about the runner behind him who he couldn’t see. The next pitch he swug at, but it went scooting foul along the third base line.

“C’mon, John! Get me home, amigo!” the runner shouted after he tagged up and led off again. The pitcher spun around and threw to the second baseman, but Yuuri’s teammate was quickly back in plenty of time.

Yuuri made a few more practice swings and took his stance again, his posture easy but ready, knees slightly bent. A slow pitch came at him in a straight line, headed right for the heart of the plate. He barely had time to register how perfect it was, like your favorite dessert waiting in front of you or your lover’s lips hovering just above your own, before he took a step and ripped into it.

He knew it was good from the feel when the bat made contact – almost soft, no vibrations down the handle, and a muffled thock as the ball was suddenly and forcefully sent flying in the opposite direction. It went high and long, Yuuri could see at a glance before he tore his helmet off, dropped the bat and started to run. The cheering of his teammates and the few spectators on the benches indicated that something exciting was happening. Without base coaches, he risked taking a glance at the outfield to see where the ball was, and spotted the left fielder still running after it; unfortunately for her, it had traveled and rolled far away, though the long grass eventually halted its progress. But not before Yuuri had already rounded third and was trotting home to the hollers of his teammates, who had stood up from the bench and were waving and clapping. They praised him and patted him on the back as he joined them and took a seat.

“Way peak, amigo,” the man next to him said, whose name Yuuri thought he remembered was Ben.

“Thanks,” he said with a quiet smile, as a tingle of delight rippled down his spine.

Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.

***

He lay in bed that night reliving the home-run moment. It made his heart swoop. This was perhaps the first day he’d lived here at children of Gaia and actually felt some sense of satisfaction, rather than despondency, at the end.

With the Patels’ help, he and the other cooks had made mulligatawny soup and dhokla, chickpea-flour pancakes filled with spicy vegetables, for dinner. It wasn’t strictly paleo, but the soup base was sweet potato rather than lentil, and the pancakes were thin and didn’t require much batter. It was beginning to feel like an art, cooking like this. Art you could eat. Which was how it used to feel. Even if it took a lot of time and effort now, because Yuuri was catering for a couple hundred people. He couldn’t ever see a career as a chef on the cards for himself, but…well, he could get along here this way, he thought.   

Though it was the baseball he’d enjoyed the most today. MIT had a faculty team. It was a shame he’d been there all that time after he’d lost the weight and never once given a thought to joining. He’d forgotten what a joy it used to be to play, though he watched professional baseball often enough. He’d never worn a proper uniform. Soft, thin material clinging to his muscles. He suddenly wondered what it might have been like, months ago, if he’d been playing while Victor had been watching, and the idea sent an electric thrill through him. Part of him said it was juvenile to want to show off in front of your crush like that, but another part thought it was sexy as hell. Especially when Victor got him alone while he was still in his uniform…

But then he came to himself, and felt chagrined. He couldn’t keep having these thoughts. Rahul had put a foot in the doorway and forced it ajar a little more, he’d realized; doubts and uncertainties had been creeping in about what Victor’s part in it all had been. Most of the time, however, he still swept them away before he got very far. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life like this, longing for someone who…who had done what Victor had done. Whatever that was. Held back some important truths, at the very least, including the fact that he worked for an organization that killed people.

With great difficulty, Yuuri shifted his focus away from it once more, and fell asleep juggling recipes and weekly menus in his mind.


	33. Chapter 33

He was drifting on the undulating sea, up and down, warm and rhythmic. The movement filled him, rocked him. Took him to a peak – and suddenly he was awake.

Too late to stop what was happening to his body. He fisted the sheets and cried out as his orgasm overtook him. There was nothing to do apart from ride the pulses and then allow the tension to drain from his body and the sweat to cool, while he lay boneless.

What had set _that_ off? Yuuri wondered hazily, feeling at his waist and noticing he’d worn his boxers to bed, at least, so there wouldn’t be too much mess to clean up. He hadn’t had a wet dream in years. Before his conscious mind had seemingly tried to make sense of what he’d been feeling by bringing the water and waves to mind…Oh. Of course. He remembered now. A dream about what might have happened with Victor if the ring had never existed, and they’d gone on to spend that night together. The best kind of dream, too; a little lucid, maybe because he’d been on the cusp of wakefulness anyway, and so had been able to direct what had occurred. It had been so vivid, and intense, and satisfying. He let a sigh slip out, feeling utterly replete, momentarily not caring about all the complexities that had intruded into their relationship from that point onward.

It was because of what he’d been fantasizing about earlier, he was sure. Victor watching him play baseball, and then somehow suddenly they were the only two people in the locker room. _I have to stop doing this._ He stripped his boxers off, got a drink of water, and climbed under the sheets. It would be sensible not to let this happen again, if he could help it. He’d been neglecting his body’s needs, that was the problem. The last time he’d had an orgasm was…he couldn’t remember when, which surprised him. But it made sense, too. He hadn’t wanted to think about sex with Victor, but couldn’t think about it with anyone else either – despite having had a few more offers here at the commune, from men and women, which he’d turned down; and he wouldn’t have felt like watching porn even if he’d had the means. What should he do?

Well, it was the middle of the night, and he was too tired to work it out right now. He turned onto his side and listened to the soughing of the wind through the tree branches outside, drifting back into slumber. But it wasn’t long before he was disturbed again.

_[Help…HELP! What’s happening to me??]_

Yuuri moaned and rubbed at his eyes. Sometimes they picked the damndest times. But no, that wasn’t fair. People couldn’t control when it happened to them, and they simply reached out for help when it did. Barely asleep as he’d been, at this time of night, he was probably at his most receptive.

He propped himself up so that his back was against the wall of the shack, which would prevent him from returning to sleep while he was doing this. The presence was clamoring for…if not a response, then aid of some kind. _Praying,_ more like. He felt the desperation radiating. This could take some time. He inhaled a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly through his mouth, something Rahul had told him helped to calm the mind and nourish the life force, a concept they both understood as prana, chi or ki. He was still experimenting to see if he noticed it making any difference.

_[I’m lost…what is this…]_

_[It’s OK,]_ Yuuri sent, along with the usual warmth and feeling of grounding. The sense you could have of drifting in a void, with everything not quite real, could be truly frightening, he knew. _[You’re not alone. I’m here.]_

_[Are you a person?]_

_[Yes.]_

_[Are you real?]_

They often asked that for some reason, as if his answer could somehow reassure them. _[Yes.]_

_[I’m so scared.]_

_[Everything’s fine. You have a new ability! It can be exciting.]_

_[No. I don’t want this.]_

Yuuri took another deep breath and let it out. _[Sometimes we don’t have a choice.]_

_[I’ve gone crazy.]_

_[No. I’m here, and I’m not crazy.]_

_[You’re part of the craziness. How has this happened to me? THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING.]_

_[The best thing you can do right now is calm down.]_

_[I CAN’T.]_

Yuuri concentrated hard and sent loving feelings, rooted in memories of what he’d gone through himself. _[I’m here with you. I – ]_

_[You, and this and everything…I don’t know what’s real anymore.]_

_[Please, try to be calm.]_

_[MY WORLD IS FALLING APART. THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN.]_

Yuuri’s blood raced through his veins. The terror coming from this presence was palpable. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything quite like it. It was seeping into him, evoking a similar response, like a drowning person grabbing a would-be rescuer and pulling them under. He paused to regroup; to steady himself. The person was pounding on his door, but at the same time was wary…even angry, as if Yuuri was some figment of their imagination sent to torture their overwrought brain. Jesus. For just a moment, Yuuri considered pulling away; deciding this was beyond his ability to deal with.

_No,_ he said to himself. _I wouldn’t do that to anybody. And this one needs me more than any of the others have. At least, that seems to be the case._

_[I know it’s frightening to feel out of control. But you only feel that way because this is new.]_

_[???]_

_[I can teach you how to control this. To make it work for you. So you can enjoy it.]_

_[I just want it to go away.]_

_[That’s because this is new.]_

_[Do you ever want it to go away?]_

Oh. Yuuri thought for a moment. The answer was yes. But was that what he should send?

_[Are you still there???]_

_[Of course. It can be hard sometimes, having this ability. But I’ve accepted that it’s part of me.]_

_[Did you ever think you were crazy?]_

None of them had ever probed him with questions like this before either. In fact, when they were newly awakened, they did not tend to be this…gregarious with their thoughts and feelings. It usually took time and practice to be able to send them coherently, with Yuuri’s prompting. Either this presence had picked it up very quickly, or it was unusually…gifted, perhaps, was the word? Maybe even both. He considered for a moment whether this could be someone with established ESP from the Coughlin Institute pretending to reach out to him. But connecting like this, you got more of a sense of the genuine person underneath the persona they habitually showed the world. They couldn’t really hide the essence of themselves, even if they tried. That had been the case with Crow, as well as some other presences who had attempted occasionally to impress or fool him because they felt insecure, or wanted to toy with him, or just discover what would happen. It was always transparent to some degree. And he had no doubt that this presence was genuinely distraught.

_[DON’T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS.]_

_[I won’t. I’m here. No more thinking about being crazy. Neither of us is crazy. You need to try to calm down. Think…about a relationship, or even a pet. Something that’s safe, and loving, and makes you happy. See it as an anchor. Hold on to it and be strong.]_

He got the feeling that the person was frantically thinking. Then there was a flood of warmth that felt like the steadily glowing embers of a fire, burning deep in their hearts long into the night. But…it wasn’t a human this came from. It…it was a…pet. A…dog? Yuuri didn’t know how he’d gotten the impression, but he felt sure. It was a good idea, too, he thought. Pets were unconditionally accepting, and relationships with them were simpler; he knew from experience.

_[That’s right. Keep thinking of that. Breathe. Everything’s going to be OK.]_

There was a long, still moment. The presence remained, but the panic was subsiding. Yuuri relaxed his shoulders in relief.

_[Could…I see you as an anchor too?]_ they sent in what felt like a tentative voice.

_[Of course. I’d like to help.]_

_[I hope you really are real.]_

_[I’m sure you’ll accept that I am, in time. We’ll work together.]_

_[Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m still very frightened.]_

_[I know. It’ll be OK.]_

Yuuri stayed with the presence for a while longer, until they seemed calm. Then he made sure they were comfortable with dropping the connection for now. When he sensed they’d faded away, he sighed and slumped against the wall, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. He wasn’t just tired from lack of sleep. It felt like the energy had been leached from his body; from his very bones. Not deliberately by the other presence; but they had needed Yuuri to give, and that was what he’d freely done. He would probably feel a little sick for the next day or two, but he’d build up his reserves again.

The room was brighter than it had been when he’d awakened; a thin milky light was filtering through the flowered curtains, heralding the approach of a new day. He was tempted to get out of bed now…but there was no real reason to do so. Nothing that couldn’t wait.

He burrowed back under the covers, but sleep eluded him, and eventually he decided to go out for a jog. The crisp air of the dark morning, with the eastern sky slowly whitening, prodded him the rest of the way to wakefulness. Before long, it seemed, he was in the kitchen at the lodge cooking scrambled eggs and cheese for his personal breakfast, before starting preparations for a communal lunch of vegetarian taco salad. He put more milk from the dairy on order, with the intention of making paneer from it, and halfway through the morning pulled up a chair on the deck outside the French windows, a recipe book on his lap, enjoying the feel of the breeze playing through his hair.

Sometimes he wondered if this might be the best time of year to be here. It was pleasantly warm, but not hot like the Arizona desert had been. Some of the trees were still turning, their rust colors standing out on the surrounding hills; though the many pines guaranteed swaths of green year round. Boston would be starting to feel a chill now, and by the end of the month it wasn’t unheard of for it to snow; he remembered Halloweens with jack-o’-lanterns growing white hair and beards as drifts built up around them. He suspected, however, that it wouldn’t be so pleasant here in the middle of the hot, dry summer, especially out on the adobe flats. Somehow he didn’t think he’d be here long enough to experience it; he knew that however uncertain he still was about his future, one thing he was not going to do was sit around and stew about it for months on end. At some point he would have to make some concrete decisions.

But for now, he wondered what kinds of pickles people here might like. Made the old-fashioned way, they’d be tasty and healthy too, full of beneficial bacteria for the gut. It was a good use for the leftover whey from the paneer-making. The recipe book he now opened and began to peruse was about fermented foods. Surely those would be easy to make on a large scale, given the right kitchen equipment…

_[Are you there?]_

Yuuri lifted his eyes to the bright blue sky. Again…now? Well all right, then. This new presence obviously needed reassurance. Hadn’t he offered just a few hours ago to be an anchor for them?

_[Yes, I’m here. Are you OK?]_

_[I don’t know. It still feels like I’m going crazy, and I’ve had more weird experiences since last night.]_

_[It’ll take some getting used to.]_

_[I don’t know if I can.]_

_[You will.]_

_[I really don’t think I can.]_

Yuuri dug deep for patience. _[It seems hard for you to accept this.]_

_[It seems hard for you to understand how this can turn someone’s life upside down and make them think they’re going crazy.]_

Oh. There was frustration there. Anger, even. And they were so, so wrong. Yuuri wondered what he could do to give them what they needed. _[That was how I felt at first, too. But it didn’t last. You’ll come to see it as normal.]_

_[Like…]_ Yuuri sensed them attempting to send the name of a place, frustrated because they couldn’t work out how. _[Living there in that crazy world. The new normal.]_

Yuuri received hazy dreamlike visions of the tea party, and the Cheshire cat, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the latter somehow being the most disturbingly surreal. _Alice in Wonderland._ The presence saw it all as some kind of drug trip gone bad, from which there would never be any escape. And whenever they sent _[crazy]_ , it was imbued with that horror of loss of control; of sudden distrust of everything they believed they were taking in with their five senses. Yuuri realized that under a veneer of calmness, there remained a stark fear, which they were doing an amazingly good job of concealing, even from themselves.    

_[Sometimes what the ESP gives you access to…I suspect it might be even more real than what we conventionally think of as real. Hyper-real.]_

_[I don’t know if I can believe that.]_

_[What would it take to convince you it’s real? That I’m real?]_

A pause. _[I don’t know.]_

Of course they wouldn’t. This was all new to them. Then he thought of something. _[I’d like to teach you a song. Well enough that you can remember it, go away, and use your chip to find out what it is. If it’s one you’ve never heard before, and your chip tells you it’s real, will that help? I’ll pick something obscure.]_

Another pause. Then, hesitantly, _[OK.]_

God, it had been so long since he’d had the simple luxury of being able to listen to music. He missed it like the desert missed the rain. But he could still summon a melody in his head. What, though? Something completely removed from the mainstream; something really old, maybe.  

Then it leaped into his head. “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by The Four Tops, from the 1960s. Wait…He thought about the lyrics. They were pretty personal. Intimate, even. But in a way, they seemed ideal for the situation. He liked “I’ll be there” and “Reach out for me” – that was what he wanted to offer all of these presences. He wouldn’t be able to send the words, of course, but he could send the melody, the sound of the instruments, the voices; and if it worked as well as it had with Bubbles, the presence would be able to get all the information they wanted from their chip.

  _[I can sort of hear it,]_ they sent.

Yuuri laughed aloud. _[I was thinking it to myself. You must have overheard. Here, let’s give it a try.]_

He got the impression that the presence wasn’t familiar with this song, which was what he’d wanted. They worked on it together for a while, and then Yuuri gently prised himself away, knowing he had to start cooking lunch. This presence was strong, as he’d suspected. Easy to communicate with. Such a swirl of deep emotions, joyful and sad – and still that all-encompassing fear that they were going crazy. Well, Yuuri could relate. He wondered if they were going to become one of his regular contacts, and found himself hoping so.

When they called to him again that evening in his shack, his question seemed to have been answered, for now at least. In fact, he was surprised at their persistence. Though he thought he could understand their excitement when they explained, or tried to.

_[!!!]_

Yuuri knew the “feel” of this person already. Beneath the fear that was still there was childlike curiosity and enthusiasm, though he was certain they weren’t a child; they might even be an older adult. Children seemed to be more accepting of things like this, without feeling the need to question so much. There was a keen intellect there in the background, too; a fast learner. Yuuri was intrigued. These qualities had always guided his own work, and maybe they would give him a window of insight into this particular presence.

_[Hello?]_ they sent.

Always the concern that if he didn’t respond right away, it meant he wasn’t there at all. Or…yes, that he might disappear completely. It had been a good idea to send that song, Yuuri thought. Maybe it would give some reassurance. _[Hi. Are you OK?]_

_[!!! Great song. Loved it.]_

_[Like the song says, I’m here for you. Sometimes I might not be able to answer, or be in a state where I’m receptive enough to know you’re trying to contact me. But don’t worry. I won’t disappear.]_ He had to take his time in sending this, considering every piece of information and how best to transfer the knowledge. These were important things for the presence to know if they wanted to stay in contact.

_[Glad.]_

_[You should rest. You’ve been through a lot today.]_

_[I still have the feeling that this might not be real. Your song helped. But…]_

_[That’s OK. It’ll take some time.]_

_[Thanks.]_

_[No problem.]_

_[I like you.]_

Yuuri smiled. _[I like you, too.]_

***

In the following weeks, the new presence contacted Yuuri on a daily basis, sometimes more than once, even if it was just to say hello. Maybe to be comforted that Yuuri was still there; they seemed to feel a pressing need to do so. Or because they were lonely, or bored, or any number of things. There were other people who contacted him for the first time, in the usual frightened state. But this one he now counted as a friend.

Yuuri didn’t mind. In fact, he felt himself growing fonder of them than any other presence he’d met. He had the feeling they were still clinging to him, as if the landscape of their newfound ESP ability was too frightening on its own. And their worry that something was wrong in their head seemed to be permanently there to a degree, though it was less potent than it had been at first. However, though Yuuri knew this person contacted him for support, he began to feel like he was receiving the same in turn. A softness and beauty that were part of their essence. There was also a hint of a playful personality that liked to have fun, though it was subdued somehow, like a curtain drawn over a window. What that curtain was made of, Yuuri couldn’t be sure; but it was always there, tinging everything with melancholy. It could be something personal in their life, probably completely unrelated to the ESP, and Yuuri didn’t want to pry. He reckoned it was likely he was sending a similar message about himself.

For someone he felt so close to, it seemed silly not to have a name for them. One evening, after an ESP session, he thought about how this presence made him feel. If he had to compare them to an object, or something living, what would it be? “Soft” was a feature that continued to stand out. But only in the sense that they seemed to be open and trusting with him; he suspected they might actually prove to have a backbone of steel if the need for it arose. A latent determination and resolve. He wished he could meet them in real life. But he couldn’t seem to get the ESP to work like that. The presences found him. But they never found each other in the physical world. Every time he’d come face to face with another person with that ability, it had been through some other ordinary means.

So should he think of this presence as a color? An animal? Something to do with another sense? Smell, sound… _touch._ That was it. Being in contact with them was like…

Stroking a piece of velvet.

That was what they would be, then. “Velvet.” Perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Reach Out I’ll be There”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo) by the Four Tops


	34. Chapter 34

It was so perfect. He wanted to laugh, but had quelled that particular urge. Important not to make a single sound. His breaths came slowly, so very slowly. He couldn’t hear them at all in the dark, the door open just the slightest crack, daylight slivering in to spill against the back wall.

How incredibly useful it was to be able to shield himself. All the other people he’d ever come across with spirit-sight didn’t seem to be able to do it. It meant he could saunter past any household surveillance devices, and the people themselves were lit up like lamps, so childishly simple for him to find, while he was utterly invisible to them. _Too_ easy, really. But that made it fun, when they suddenly realized – too late – that he was there. Eventually he’d thought to start recording their gasps and screams on his chip, to play back when he felt like it; to compare with each other. To see what new response he could elicit next time. Today, just for a change, he was going to see how silent he could keep things, though he knew it wasn’t strictly necessary. Nobody else was around to hear any noise.

He gave a tiny start, coming out of his thoughts as heard his target nearing. _Prey_ was a more appropriate term, but too crude. And a shade on the immature side. He was a professional at this, after all; not some idiot kid with fantasies of self-aggrandizement. Well, not anymore. He’d fixed all that. Including the people who had pushed him down in the first place.

A shadow passed across the crack of light, and his mind chuckled. _You can’t feel me, but I can feel you._ Just where he wanted. Close, and so innocent; so unsuspecting. He took a moment to savor the sweet, sweet feel of it.

Then, catlike, he silently sprang from his concealment, wrapped strong arms around the woman from behind, and clamped a hand over her mouth. He fisted a hand in the back of her ash-brown hair and yanked, drinking in the wide-eyed fear that stared back at him. Another moment he wished he could stretch to fit the contemplation of an hour. Impossible, sadly.

Before she could think to struggle, he raised his knife and expertly slit her throat. It would have been easier with a laser gun, of course; but nowhere near as satisfying. The SOCO team would no doubt thank him for choosing the kitchen, as the mess could be cleaned up more easily. Though they would be disappointed to find no evidence to identify who had made it.

As she slumped to the floor, having barely uttered a squeak in her final moments, Crow imagined doing this to Yuuri’s beautiful neck. A hot crimson thread snaking down unblemished white. There was just the minor issue of finding him first. Seeing or feeling the spirit-sight of someone else was only possible at a short distance, unfortunately. But he was sure there must be a way of making contact. It had eluded him so far, but he would discover it, as he had discovered other things he could do over the years.

In the meantime, he continued to grope in the void for that presence he knew he would recognize once he came across it again. The link they’d already forged in Yuuri’s apartment should help, surely. Though he didn’t like to think about that, and the personal information he’d inadvertently given away. But he would find a way to make it work to his advantage. No one, _no one_ , ever ultimately escaped him, and that wasn’t going to change now. And no one walked uninvited through the landscape of his memories, his past…least of all _him_. If their little session had gone on for much longer, Yuuri might have stumbled upon information about his work for the Institute, and then the game would’ve been up.

Then, in the office at MIT…Crow had to admit he’d been careless, and underestimated Yuuri’s resourcefulness. He’d never expected him to agree to join the Institute or have the operation. But he hadn’t expected him to be able to escape, either. He should’ve shot him when he had the chance. That bump on the head he’d given him from whatever it was he’d grabbed off his desk…well, his pride was the only thing that was still wounded, but it was enough. Yuuri would suffer for that.

But there was no hurry to find him. It wasn’t as if he was in any position to do serious harm. Let Yuuri think he’d gotten away before he really focused on sinking his talons in.

He liked it when they ran.

***

It was the beginning of November, and Yuuri had been invited to celebrate Diwali with the Patels. They’d remained together in the kitchen at the lodge after the community dinner was served and cleared away, cooking foods for a Gujarati meal they could share. They’d pre-prepared what they could, so that most of it only needed warming up. Yuuri had decided to give the paleo eating a miss for once in order to join in with them; he’d visited the Cloud café to find recipes. They made daal, puri, chapatis, a spicy mixed vegetable dish, and a few varieties of sweets consisting of boiled milk, nuts, spices and rosewater, then put it all in glass containers which they tucked into burlap bags and carefully transported back to the Patels’ shack, the aromas intermingling invitingly.

Yuuri sat on the ground and watched while Rahul and Jignesh performed an elaborate puja, lighting candles and incense and placing all of the foods on the altar. They’d told him the Hindu stories underpinning the festival; about the return of the god Ram and his wife Sita from exile, and how Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, would roam the earth to bless households with prosperity. The Patels lit extra tealight candles to welcome her, and made a rangoli pattern just outside the shack with colored salts, a red swastika in the middle. Yuuri hadn’t been aware that this was an ancient symbol for luck before it had been co-opted by the Nazis, and seeing it in that context was taking some getting used to.

He could see how important it was to them both to celebrate a religious day like this, so far away from home, when they no doubt were used to being with friends and family, and going to the temple. The meaning he took away for himself, however, was light shining through the darkness and the triumph of good over evil. Simple and old, but never trite, because it always felt relevant somehow. Keeping hope alive. Yuuri knew how black the night could be without it.

When the Patels were finished with their ceremony, they shared the food out. A white towel had been spread across the floor to serve as a table of sorts, and they had plates and bowls and cutlery. Yuuri thought it smelled as good, if not better, than it tasted. Roasted mustard seeds and cilantro. Cumin and cinnamon. Freshly baked bread dipped in the sauces. Cardamom and rosewater. A feast for all the senses.

He looked across at Rahul as he ate. _[I’d love to visit your village during Diwali. It must be really special there.]_

Rahul gestured to him with a hand that held a piece of bread and shook his head as he chewed. “You promised you speak me English. I must learn.”

“You don’t try very hard when I’m here,” Jignesh said.

Rahul answered in Gujarati, and the two of them engaged in a rapid exchange while Yuuri sat peacefully and ate.

_[My grandson says between the thought-conversations I have with you and the Gujarati conversations I have with him, I’ll never learn the language here. I say he’s wrong.]_

Yuuri snorted a laugh and drank some lassi sweetened with mango pulp. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, you said that cooking in your village is women’s work, but you do it here, and you’re learning.”

“Eh?”

“You cook here. But it’s women’s work, you said.”

“Cook?” Rahul echoed.

_“_ _Randhavu,”_ Jignesh chipped in quickly, concentrating on his food.

“Ah.” But there was confusion on his face.

“Practice makes perfect, they say,” Yuuri muttered; then wondered how it would be possible to get this across with ESP. He eventually gave up.

Later, after they took everything back to the lodge to wash and dry, and Rahul gave Jignesh permission to go visit his friends, he and Yuuri returned to the shack and sat digesting while the myriad tealights dispelled the darkness.

“So if Laxmi visits tonight – ” Yuuri began.

Rahul, in his customary position on his bed with his back against the wall, made a shushing noise. _[No more English for now. We’ll spend too much time trying to tell each other how to catch a train or order in a restaurant. That’s what they teach in language classes, isn’t it? And I don’t even understand that.]_

Yuuri laughed. “OK.”

_[You said something about the goddess.]_

_[If she visits tonight, what would be the luckiest thing she could give you? What do you want most?]_

“Hmm.” There was a long silence while Yuuri watched the little flames dance, pinpoints of blue where they met the wicks, surrounded by yellow halos. _[You know how to test even the wise with such questions. Am I only allowed one thing?]_

_[Why not. Yes. One thing.]_

_[Then it would be for my grandson to be safe and well here in this country.]_

Yuuri turned to look at him. _[What about yourself?]_

_[I wish that too, of course. But I can’t have many years left, and regardless of whatever is in front of me, I already know what’s behind, and can reflect on it. I worry about him, though I know he’s a sensible young man.]_

Yuuri nodded. _[But wouldn’t you wish…that the chip had never existed? Then there would have been no need for either of you to leave home?]_

Rahul raised an eyebrow. _[That’s so fanciful I didn’t even think of it. How do you wish things like that undone? What’s happened has happened. What would_ you _wish?]_

_[I’d wish things undone,]_ Yuuri sent with an audible little huff. _[I lost my career and the man I loved. I don’t think they’re ever coming back. But I don’t know what else I can wish. They were all I wanted.]_

“Hmm.” _[That’s difficult. Maybe you could wish for the wisdom to make a good choice about your future.]_

_[Maybe.]_ Yuuri was staring at the flames again. _[Or maybe I could wish for something unexpected and wonderful to happen; something I never thought would be possible. Because all the possibilities I’ve thought of so far don’t work very well.]_

_[Have you considered whether you might have been wrong about the blue-eyed blond-haired man?]_

“Victor.” He felt it as he pronounced the word. Heard its sound fill the shack. “ _Anu nam_ Victor _che._ And…” _[I still don’t know. His colleagues tried to kill me. They’re probably still looking for me. I can’t just forget that.]_

_[Of course.]_

Yuuri sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again a minute later, he stared at the altar. _[There’s something I’ve noticed about that,]_ he sent, pointing at it. _[Sometimes, like now. It seems…I don’t know, hard to describe…brighter. But not in a way I see with my eyes. Like it’s more real than everything around it. I know that doesn’t make sense – ]_

Rahul gave him a beaming smile. _[It makes perfect sense, my friend. That’s as it should be. It may be more noticeable right now because of the puja we did for Diwali. Everything on the altar, and the rituals we do there, brings higher vibrations, higher consciousness to the world. That’s what you’re sensing. It will be the same for you in other special places. Places full of love, where people care for each other or have done good deeds. Places where there’s harmony. If you’re especially lucky, you might even sense it with another person.]_

_[Maybe that’s what the goddess could bring me, then.]_ Yuuri laughed.

_[That’s a nice thing to wish for. But it’s so simple to help create yourself. One thing we do, at the beginning of every mantra, is say…]_ “OM.” The deep-voiced syllable shook the silence. He went on to explain that Hindus believed it was the vibration of the universe, the frequency of energy that joined all things together, arising from pure consciousness. The transcendent made physical. Similar to what scientists called the big bang. Yuuri said he thought it was just something yogis chanted. Rahul seemed to find this both sad and amusing. It was said at the beginning of a mantra as a reminder of the interconnectedness of all things, which was also the meaning of namaste – “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.” Yuuri decided the sound of OM was beautiful and calming, though he wasn’t going to start sitting under trees and chanting it. Rahul picked up on the thought and said he could do worse, as trees were full of prana. Yuuri had an image of himself doing that at MIT, along with the likely reactions of students and staff, and they both laughed. Though come to think of it, many of the Asian ones would probably not see it as anything very far from the ordinary, at least in their home countries.

_[You don’t have to be a Hindu to have a household shrine,]_ Rahul sent.

_[I know. My family always had a butsudan.]_

_[Did you ever have one yourself?]_

_[No. It didn’t seem to mean anything.]_

_[In a place like this, maybe it would mean something. To remind you of what you really care about. Anything that matters to you, or represents something that matters to you, can go on your altar. No need for puja or prashad. Just symbols to help you connect and keep your priorities clear.]_

“Oh.” Yuuri ran a hand over his face. “I…I’d have to think about that. I don’t know what I’d put there. I don’t own much.”

_[I have a spare candle from the town. I probably won’t use it again; it’s big, and we use tealights for most of our ceremonies.]_ He stood up.

“I don’t – ”

_[I’m giving it to you as a gift. You can do what you want with it.]_ He reached into a canvas bag in the corner and pulled out a thick white church-style candle that had been lit a few times.

“I – OK. _Shukriya_ ,” Yuuri said, accepting it. He sat back, thinking he ought to go soon and give Rahul some peace, when another surprise came.

_[Hi!]_

It was the…it was Velvet. Yuuri remembered he needed to think of them with that name now. Two people wanting to communicate with him via ESP at the same time – that had never happened before. And the warmth he felt from the new one…that, and a happy tingle. He closed his eyes and sent the same back with a smile. It was like sinking down into a luxuriant steaming scented bath.

_[Hey, what’s happening with you there?]_ Rahul sent, eyeing him with a smile.

_[One of the presences I communicate with. They’re saying hello.]_

_[You don’t look like that when I say hello. What am I doing wrong?]_ But his eyes were sparkling.

Yuuri laughed. _[Maybe it’s because you’re here with me. Communicating with them is different. You have to…feel it out more, because there are basic things about them you can’t know.]_

_[Are you there?]_ It was Velvet, with a hint of worry, though Yuuri had already explained he wouldn’t always be able to answer.

_[I’m here. Are you OK?]_

_[I am now that I’m with you…this is still frightening.]_

Rahul waved at him and sent, _[Settle back, Yuuri, and be with this person if you want. Or go back to your shack if you prefer. It’s good that you help people like this.]_

Yuuri nodded in thanks and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to relax. _[I know it can be rough. What’s been upsetting you…?]_

***

The next day, after helping to put the final touches on an adobe house, Yuuri walked into town, bought a few provisions – still no radio at the antique shop, and the frustration went some way to assuaging his guilt about taking out the camera again – returned to his shack, and sat on the ground in front of his table. Then he pulled his backpack toward him. All the time he’d been here, he’d never completely unpacked it. This time he did, right down to the bottom. Afterward, he contemplated the scattered items on the floor. There were useful things he’d bought while he was hopping the trains. Bandages for cuts. Painkillers for headaches. Pens and notepads. A nail file and other assorted accoutrements. Then there was his cash, of course. The useless biochem monitor, which wasn’t something for an altar; it didn’t have that kind of sentimental meaning. He stuffed it back at the bottom of his pack anyway, not wanting to part with it either.

There were two framed photographs in front of him, and two tablets. The tablets should still work, and contained his research notes, as well as details of all his contacts. A link to what he’d left behind. He knew people might think it was odd, but well…this was for him and him alone. He placed both tablets on the table, next to the candle that Rahul had given him. Then he looked at the photos. They were the ones that had hung on the wall in his office at MIT for so long. And had taken down in embarrassment when Victor had arrived.

Freddie Mercury, dressed in white jeans and a white tank top at a huge outdoor charity concert in 1985. Yuuri would never feel ashamed of having been a fan. He still was, of course, though part of it was rooted in nostalgia now. A little chuckle of surprise escaped him when he suddenly remembered that the singer’s parents had been Gujaratis. “Small world,” he muttered, picking up the photo and propping it at the back of the table, against the wall.

And next…his heart gave a nervous flutter as he took Victor’s photo off the ground. A few years ago, dapper in a suit as he accepted an award. All that time Yuuri had spent looking up to him, making his idol’s work a measuring stick for his own, dreaming of approaching his knowledge and skill one day. Even meeting him, if he was lucky.

_Or seducing him while I was flat-out lanced at a banquet._ He just shook his head, still hardly able to believe it. In fact, given the way events had unfolded, he might still be questioning the story now if he hadn’t seen the actual photos.

He’d loved him from afar. Fantasized about him. Then struggled against all the awkwardness he’d felt when the man himself showed up. In his office. Telling him he was his research partner. The image – the fantasy – come to life in front of him.

The real person had been even better. In so many ways.

_Until I discovered his secret._

He ran a gentle finger down the front of the photograph. A drop of moisture fell softly and puddled on the glass.   

“Why, Victor?” he whispered. “What are you doing, belonging to the Coughlin Institute? How…I don’t understand. I _know_ you. I couldn’t be so wrong about somebody.”

Though it wasn’t impossible. He was sure that clever spies had gloated over their triumphs many times.

_Victor would never gloat. That’s not the kind of person he is._

_Maybe not everything he said was a lie. It was just easier for me to think that than try to pull the intricacies apart, especially when I was just focused on survival. But now…?_

How would the process be any easier? There were still difficult facts that had to be reconciled with any reframing he attempted. The operations he performed, which he hadn’t told Yuuri about until he’d been forced to carry one out in front of him. Keeping silent about his membership with the Institute. Of course he would. Maybe he’d never spoken a single lie. But his lying by omission was truly breathtaking in its scope.

Maybe he was being the world’s biggest fool. Maybe time would be the only true healer, and maybe he would need a lot of it. But until then…he wasn’t going to deny what he still felt so deeply. He loved Victor. Wiping away another tear with his sleeve, he placed the photo next to the one of Freddie. There – a white candle, two tablets, two photos. His altar.

Wait. It was still so new, he’d almost forgotten…He stood, fetched his canvas bag with the items he’d bought from town, and pulled out a red rose. Plucked a petal and smoothed it between his fingers. Yes, that would do. He plucked the remaining petals until they lay in an airy stack in his hand; then he sprinkled them over the table in front of the photos.

_Mustn’t forget you, Velvet. You’re special, too._

***

Some mornings and evenings, he lit the candle for a while. Sometimes it was so quiet in the shack that he could hear the delicate splutter of the flame against the wax on the wick. He did his work for the commune; visited with the Patels – ensuring Rahul persevered with his English; decided he loved playing baseball and hoped he could continue in some capacity, wherever he happened to be in the future. Occasionally he would go to Palomar Mountain too, hiking or jogging, and admire the observatory, and not feel quite as alone as he had before.

He kept up with the evening ESP sessions as well. Velvet sometimes appeared in those, or at other times; there seemed to be no regular pattern to it, but it didn’t bother Yuuri, who simply accommodated whenever he could. He taught Velvet how to disable electronic equipment, though like the others, they couldn’t seem to understand why they’d need to. Yuuri got the feeling a few times that Velvet was trying to show him something in turn, but couldn’t quite work out how, and so the person simply gave up in frustration. However, they did manage to teach Yuuri something in a roundabout way.

Velvet obviously wasn’t aware that he didn’t have a chip, and kept repeating a catchy tune, in the same way that Yuuri had taught the Four Tops song. He assumed it was the refrain to something, and was sure he could have looked it up on his chip in seconds. As that was no longer an option, he decided he would try visiting the Cloud café again. The computer screens were basic, however, and did not possess many of the chip’s capabilities, including sound input. In the end, refusing to be defeated by something that should have been so simple, he spoke with the desk attendant and told him the truth – that he was unchipped and had been trying like crazy to identify a song that had been stuck in his head. He and the attendant had stood there, humming like a couple of loons, until the man’s chip suggested a possibility, which Yuuri played back on a computer screen through a pair of old-fashioned headphones.

Yes…this was it, surely. Though it wasn’t a simple song, but a piece of classical music, and Velvet had chosen a small part of it from the beginning that was easy to learn and remember. “Autumn” from Alexander Glazunov’s _The Seasons._ That explained the vaguely treelike orange images Yuuri thought had been in Velvet’s mind while they’d been working together on the tune. It was happy, lilting, sweeping at times. Someone had composed a video of pictures of changing leaves and rural scenes to go along with the music, which segued each into the next as Yuuri relaxed and listened. He knew so little about this genre; the presences seemed to be one up on him in that regard. “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” which had first been brought to his attention by Bubbles, was now one of his favorite songs. He reckoned this could be, too…if he had the capacity to listen to it, which he didn’t. He did so a few more times here, and looked forward to being able to let Velvet know that he’d identified the song.

These were all boosts to Yuuri’s mood, though when he stopped to consider, he still felt… _flat_ much of the time. As if some of the vitality had been sapped from him. But he also knew that even if he was not consciously thinking about them, the losses he was trying to come to terms with always weighed on him. Well, that was better than being caught up in despair, at least. He did not want to think about his first few weeks here at the commune. There was no point, and it was too painful.

On a rare gray morning, with rain pounding on the metal roof of the shack and little muddy rivers sluicing by outside, Yuuri decided to forego his jog and got up to light the candle on his table. The flame burned steady and bright through the leaden gloom. He knelt as if praying, and contemplated the items in front of him. The rose petals had soon dried out, losing the velvety texture for which he’d bought them; but their magenta-red hue was just as vivid, and he thought they looked pretty, like an artful pot pourri accident.

His eyes were drawn to Victor’s photo, as they often were, now that he’d put it on display. His logical mind told him he ought to be angry with this man. Disgusted. Frightened, even. But his inclination was to pay less and less heed as time went on. This could be a stupid, even deadly, mistake, he knew. After all, it would be natural for those adrenaline-drunk days of escape and flight to have faded in his memory by now, so that the danger no longer seemed so immediate or even real. But…then again, could his fears born of those same days have blinded him?

What was the truth?

Victor had seemed to accept so much about him – the weight and food issues; the ESP revelations – if indeed those had really been a surprise to him; the anxiety. When Makkachin had gotten ill, surely that had been real; and Victor was still lending his support all the way from Russia at whatever ungodly time it had been, while he was at the vet’s, for a fucking _presentation_ of all things, as if that had even been worth getting worked up about in the first place. He was far more patient with Yuuri than Yuuri would have been with himself, he knew. How would a person be able to fake all of those things? No one was that good a con artist, surely.

_So if I’ve been wrong all this time…then what?_ He stared into the eyes of Victor in the photograph, wishing they could tell him the answer.

Could…could it be possible that…Victor really _didn’t know_ what Crow and the others were getting up to – however unlikely it seemed? Like he was a cog in a machine, or…what was the expression? The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing? Might he believe that his operations were actually helping people?

Yuuri wracked his brain over all the time he’d been with Victor, hoping for some shred of evidence that would illuminate these suppositions as real possibilities. But nothing stood out for him. Just the man himself. How could that be enough?

But just supposing it was. It would mean, Yuuri realized, that he’d thrown away a genuine relationship by running away as he had. But even worse – he would have left Victor behind, in ignorance, doing work for an organization that coerced and killed.

It was unconscionable. Yuuri would never leave someone he loved in a situation like that.

But maybe he had.

_I could also be so, so wrong. If I went back with the idea of trying to help Victor, it could end up in my own death. At Victor’s hands, even. Maybe I’m not as good at making judgments about people as I thought, and he really is an agent at the top of his game._

He wished he could talk to him somehow. But he couldn’t think of a way, while Victor had a chip in his head. They’d be after him – possibly even them both, who knew? – in an instant.

The answers just wouldn’t come. But Yuuri was aware he would have to make a decision. The longer he put it off, the more likely it was that events would conspire to make one for him, and one he didn’t like.

Since he was in front of his altar, he quietly chanted the mantra for overcoming obstacles. It made him feel calmer at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Autumn” from _The Seasons_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg6dZScORQk) by Alexander Glazunov


	35. Chapter 35

The next time Yuuri saw Jignesh pass by his shack, one evening while he was clearly on the way to town in his sleek black clothes, the young man paused and then came over. Yuuri had been sitting in the open doorway with his legs propped out, allowing his mind to drift, wondering if Velvet might be around, still unable to contact presences the way they seemed to be able to contact him. He stood and said hello, then wondered at the unusual gravity in Jignesh’s expression.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you. We… _Dada_ and me…they’ve heard our case, and they said we can stay.”

Yuuri gave him a big smile. “You’ve been granted asylum? That’s great. Must be a big relief.”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Yuuri paused, inviting him to explain what was causing him concern.

Jignesh looked down and toed the ground. He was wearing bright blue and yellow tennis shoes. “So…we’re gonna be leaving in a week or so; they haven’t told us the day yet.”

Yuuri took in a breath. “Oh.” Though why that should surprise him, he wasn’t sure. It ought to have been obvious that one way or another, the Patels wouldn’t be staying here permanently.

“Yeah, they’re…sending us to another one of these commune things, where there are other jacks my age, and some Gujaratis.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

Jignesh looked back up and met his eyes. “This thought thing you and _Dada_ do…will you still be able to do that if we’re not around?”

Yuuri considered. “I, um…I don’t know. Maybe not. But what’s important is that you two are being taken good care of. This place…it’s got a way to go before it’s nice to be here, don’t you think?”

Jignesh huffed a little laugh. “Yeah.” There was a silence, and then he added, “Well, they said we need to be ready to move in a week.”

“That’s not very long. Do you need help with packing or anything?” Though as soon as he’d said it, Yuuri felt like a clinker.

“Heh. We could pack in a few minutes. We haven’t got much stuff, you know?”

“Sure. OK, well…just tell me before you go?”

“You think I’m niff or something? I’m not taking _Dada_ away before he can say goodbye. He’d never forgive me.”

***

The Patels’ case worker, a smartly dressed young woman called Carrie with blond hair done up neatly in a bun, arrived in a car to collect them the following Saturday morning. Yuuri had been given a couple of days’ notice of their departure once they’d found out themselves, and had cooked a special meal for them at the lodge the night before, which they’d taken back to eat at the Patels’ shack as they’d done for Diwali. He knew he’d done nothing wrong in the preparation, but it still ended up tasting like ashes in his mouth. For the Patels’ sake, he forced himself to be cheerful, though inside he was feeling the imminent loss of his friends. He knew it was selfish. This was the best thing that could have happened to them, and he was glad someone had been sensitive enough to their needs to find a more appropriate place for them to live.

Now, standing in the Patels’ shack, the place seemed bigger and emptier; a blank canvas ready for the next occupants to paint with their own colors. One large gray suitcase contained all their belongings, which Carrie placed in the car. A faint trace of incense lingered in the air, and a few tiny white wax stains remained on the table, if you knew to look for them.

Jignesh patted Yuuri on his back and thanked him for helping to take care of _Dada._ Yuuri gripped his arm, looked at him intensely, and told him to take care of himself. When the teen nodded and left the room, Yuuri was alone with Rahul, who regarded him with large shining eyes.

“I have something for you,” Yuuri said, removing his backpack and undoing the top.

“Hmm?”

“A gift…” He pulled out something the size of a large saucer, round and flat, wrapped in tissue paper, and handed it over. Rahul took it and opened it, holding up and examining a carving made from a light-colored wood of a warm tan hue with fine gray grains rippling through it. It was smooth, with a diffuse sheen.

Yuuri wasn’t sure how to explain specific details via ESP, but he tried. Sent impressions of the mountain mahogany it had been made from; he’d chosen a piece of wood from the lumber yard and visited a wood carver who lived at the commune and made money from selling his creations. He’d presented a printed copy of the OM symbol he’d looked up at the Cloud café and asked if it would be possible to create such a thing in a week. Since he didn’t have a clue how to make it himself, he would need help, and was happy to pay for services rendered. Together they’d spent hours carving the curves, the overall piece vaguely resembling the number 30 with a hat shape on top and something like a cross between a wave and a licking flame on the bottom. The smoothing process, and polishing with beeswax, Yuuri had done largely on his own once he’d been shown how. There was a small stand at the base, so that it could be stood upright on an altar.

_[I hope you like it. I wanted to give you something, but it was hard to decide what.]_

Rahul ran his fingers lightly over the wood and sniffed it. _[It has a lovely smell. Thank you for doing this. I’ll treasure it.]_

There was a silence. Then Yuuri sent, _[Will we be able to keep in touch, do you think?]_

_[I don’t know. I’ve communicated with others this way before, but once they left, I never heard from them again.]_

Yuuri swallowed. “Oh.”

A rough, dry hand took his own. _[But I feel sure that if we really wanted to communicate? There would be a way.]_ He patted his chest with the palm of his other hand. _[I know it in here. The heart doesn’t lie.]_

“OK.” Yuuri swallowed again and took a shaky breath.

_[I have faith that you’ll be fine, and get what you want, my friend. My warmest thoughts and wishes will always go out to you.]_

Yuuri sniffed, and a tear ran down his cheek. _[I’ll do the same.]_

_“Ahi aavo,_ Yuuri,” Rahul said in a choked voice, reaching out; and stepping forward, they embraced each other, each continuing to shed quiet tears.

_[I’ll miss you,]_ Yuuri sent.

Jignesh called something in Gujarati from outside the shack, and Rahul called back. Then he gently pulled away, wiped his face with his sleeve, pressed his palms together in front of his chest in a gesture of prayer, and gave a slight bow. “Namaste, Yuuri.”

Yuuri copied him. “N-Namaste, Rahul.” He took a deep breath. “Goodbye.”

Rahul turned, and Yuuri followed him out of the shack. The Patels climbed into the driverless car after Carrie, the three of them on the black bench, with the suitcase on the floor. Rahul carefully tucked Yuuri’s carving inside, after showing it to Jignesh with some expansive gestures. As the car pulled away, everyone held a hand up to wave goodbye. Rahul held Yuuri’s gaze until the car had traveled a distance down the road. Yuuri watched the honey-colored clouds of dust it raised, until those were the only thing to be seen near the horizon; and then they, too, were gone.

The wind soughed through the trees as he leaned against the doorway of the empty building, his eyes brimming, his cheeks wet. Then he wiped them away with his sleeve, sniffed, shrugged his backpack on, and made his way back to his shack.

***

Yuuri had been used to visiting the Patels in the evenings, sometimes for hours. Allowing his mind to wander with Rahul’s. Occasionally, once his ankle had healed, they’d gone on short walks. During his ESP sessions, Yuuri tried a few times to reach out to him, but had not been able to make contact, though he promised himself that he would never give up hope completely. Well, all of these things could be expected, he supposed.

What he hadn’t expected was to feel his heart ache while he planned and cooked Indian food at the lodge. There were people to help him, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe if he worked at it, he could make friends with a few of them, though he didn’t feel any kind of natural rapport and wondered if they really had much in common anyway. He stuck to small talk and turned down more invitations for casual sex. In fact, he was beginning to suspect that he and the Patels had created a private enclave for themselves in this place, while the majority of the other residents lived very differently. Now that he was on his own again, he was back to feeling almost as isolated as he had been when he’d first arrived; and he’d even been struck by food cravings, though he was determined not to spiral down that plughole again, and made an effort to exercise his willpower.

_Almost_ as isolated, because working in the kitchen at the lodge was better than slinging adobe all week long; and because he still had baseball. The satisfaction of making good plays and hitting the ball just right. The rules of his own life might elude him, but the rules of this game were easily understood, and he knew he had a certain degree of control within those confines. Games were reassuring and exciting at the same time. He’d even tried his hand at pitching a few times when they’d needed a substitute; and though it wasn’t his strong point, it had been fun, and he didn’t feel he’d embarrassed himself too badly. But he missed going to see professional games, and wondered when he’d be able to again. If ever.

He’d worked with a couple of new presences, and Bubbles had come along, as well as a few of the other regulars. Velvet was still the most frequent, though, and the one Yuuri continued to look forward to the most. It seemed to him as if they’d gradually been calmer with each session, a little more accepting of what had happened to them, and less afraid. Yuuri had been able to guide long quiet periods where they were simply _there_ with each other, their thoughts and feelings drifting, like old friends who needed no words. His heart was warm and full, and he radiated love back to Velvet. Was it really possible, though, to love one of these people without knowing anything about their age, background, gender, nationality and so on? And how would you define that kind of love, anyway? It was vague, but…pure, as if he was connecting with the essence underneath all those superficial labels. Though it didn’t stop him wondering what this person was like. Where they lived. What language they spoke. And if he would ever discover a way to seek these presences out in the physical world.

Yuuri returned to his shack on a Sunday night after a jog and found he simply did not want to enter the dark, empty little tin building. And yet there was nowhere else to go. After turning the lamp on, he lit the candle on his altar, then sat back on his bed and folded his arms across his chest, stretched thin with the desire to visit the Patels, who had been gone for two weeks. He didn’t know if he could concentrate well enough for an ESP session. Why hadn’t he thought to put the brainwave-entraining device in his backpack the last time he was in his apartment? But then he remembered he wouldn’t be able to use it anyway, because it was chip-operated, like most every other damn piece of tech.

Come to think of it, what _had_ happened to his place, and everything in it? With the rent not having been paid in over two months, they’d probably slung his things out, and someone else was living there. For that matter, surely by now MIT had hired someone to take his job, too. His stomach turned.

Anyway, even if he _could_ relax enough to be available to a presence, how much help were they to him, really – even Velvet? They weren’t a physical part of his life. And there were other unique challenges about these relationships. The closer he felt to a presence, the more he tended to worry that each communication with them might be his last. They often disappeared and he never heard from them again, though the reasons for that could be numerous. One of those reasons, however, still gave him nightmares on occasion. The very thought of Velvet having an encounter with someone wearing the Orphic egg ring – and what that would mean…it made him sick with fear. Maybe he should break his rule about not worrying them unnecessarily with such knowledge. But…what if it did more harm than good? Ought he to place that burden on someone else, if they were in no danger? Then again, if he hadn’t recognized the symbol on Victor’s ring, and things had progressed…what had been the ultimate plan; what would have happened?

Yuuri sighed and looked at the picture of him on the table, the dancing yellow candle flame reflecting off the glass. He still hadn’t been able to make up his mind about what he was going to choose to believe. Whether Victor had been in on any plan or not. Whether he genuinely believed Yuuri was sick, or if he’d just been saying that to reel him in. Though each time he thought about these things, Yuuri found himself a little more inclined to give Victor the benefit of the doubt. A little. With his own life potentially on the line, it was a difficult decision to make.

His eyes alit on the two tablets. He hadn’t turned either one on since he’d erased the messages people had left who had tried to contact him via that method, after no doubt failing to get hold of him over his nonexistent chip.

He could. He _could._ But…did that mean he should?

The last time he’d thought this, he’d been aboard that bottomless freight car in some nameless stretch of Texas, clinging to a rafter and sweating buckets. He’d been desperate enough at the time to consider it. But now…?

He stood, moved over to the table, knelt on the ground in front of it, and picked up the tablet that he used for video calls. He couldn’t make or receive any to other people, but would be OK to check his messages, as long as the tech for doing that hadn’t suddenly changed since he’d left Boston. Pressed the switch on the side, and the gray screen lit up. It was still working, then. Everything as he remembered it. There was a bewildering flurry of audio and video messages waiting for him – from Phichit; various MIT departments and faculty, as well as his own students; his _father_ ; his landlady; other personages and companies and government departments to whom he should have been making regular payments.

And…Victor. Eight video messages. Several of which had been sent early on, after he’d deleted the first batch. Time had gradually stretched between messages; and the last was dated…two and a half weeks ago.

Yuuri stared, motionless. Should he really – ?

_Yes. I should._

He returned with the tablet to his bed, propped himself against the wall of the shack, and closed his eyes for a long moment. Then opened them and played the first message.

***

When the final one had ended, Yuuri tilted his head back against the tin wall behind him and took several shuddering breaths. His throat was constricted, his eyes glazed with tears, his mind full of those haunting images of Victor. In his office at Harvard. In what appeared to be his apartment nearby. Someplace else that might have been where he stayed when he went to New York. In all of them, his face drawn and pale, and those beautiful blue eyes over-bright, with shadows under them. It was clear he’d paused the messages in places when he didn’t know how to go on. Yuuri could barely watch; it was as if the pain written across Victor’s face was being transferred directly to him.

_“…Yuuri…please listen to me. I’m just trying to help. I want you here, and I want you to be well. We can talk about how to make that happen. No one will do anything without your consent. I know you must be frightened, but…please, just let me help you. That…that’s all I want…”_

_“…Where are you? Just let me know, and I’ll come…”_

_“…Please tell me you’re OK? Yuuri? Are…are you getting my messages?…_ ”

_“…I’m worried about you. So is Phichit. If you don’t want to talk to me, please will you call him? We both just want to know you’re safe…”_

The penultimate message showed him sitting at his desk at Harvard, looking at the camera uncertainly, starting and stopping several times before he finally spoke clearly. He said he was no longer going to MIT, though he was still in touch with Phichit. That he’d folded the study he and Yuuri had been working on – Yuuri had broken into sobs at this point and paused the message, though of course it had been the only sensible thing for Victor to do under the circumstances – but it could be easily revived at any point in the future, he added when Yuuri continued.

_“…Yuuri, I…I don’t want to make things worse for you. I know you were frightened when you left. But I keep imagining what might be happening to you…out there by yourself…Come home, please, Yuuri, come home. I lo – I just want to see you again…”_

Yuuri’s hand holding the tablet had started to shake. He felt like all the air was being sucked out of him. And then the enigmatic last message; the most recent.

_“…There’s something important I need to tell you. We…we need to talk. Please. I…can’t say more.”_ Then almost muttering to himself: _“I don’t know if you’re receiving this. But if you are…Yuuri, my feelings for you haven’t changed. I…not knowing what’s happening to you is…is tearing me up inside.”_ He lowered his head for a moment as he choked back a quiet sob. _“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. This is about you, not me. Please, Yuuri, if you’re there…just…”_ His voice trailed off, and then he closed his eyes and reached forward, and the screen went black.

Yuuri had never wanted to reach out to anyone more in his life. _I’m here, Victor, I’m here,_ he thought. _I want to be with you, too. I want everything to be OK. I wish it was._

It _had_ to be real, the emotions he’d seen on Victor’s face; heard in his uncharacteristically thin, quiet, somber voice. Someone who was deeply troubled in his heart. And _Yuuri_ had caused him to suffer like this. The man who’d cared enough to support him through various shades of hell that would have put many others off.

_I love you, Victor. I love you so much._

_I…I’m going to take a chance on that, and see if I can fix things somehow._

Yuuri wiped his tears away, sat up straighter, put the tablet down, and pulled a pillow onto his lap to wrap his arms around. He had to try to think practically about this. If he could.

The possibility remained that Victor was an actor worthy of an Academy Award. But he didn’t think so.

Going back to Boston…the very idea sent a chill of fear down his spine. He’d worked so hard to get away from there – from the entire country. He could be caught on any part of the journey. He could be killed. The closer he got to his destination, the likelier that was – assuming he could even figure out how to survive without a chip in a country that expected everybody to have one. And if Crow detected his presence…He took several breaths to steady himself.

More complications sprang to mind. _If_ Victor didn’t know about the Institute’s nefarious activities – and Yuuri decided he was going to assume from now on that he didn’t – then he must genuinely think Yuuri was sick, and there was no such thing as ESP. Yuuri would have to find ways to convince him of a whole string of truths that he’d been dismissing from the start. How? If he searched for information in a Cloud café, he was in no doubt that the topics he entered, such as the Coughlin Institute or ESP, would alert certain authorities who were watching for such things. And as far as the ESP went, he could now make some flink sparks fly out of electronic equipment. That wouldn’t go far toward proving any of the claims he was making. It just wasn’t enough.

But he could spend months looking for the proof he needed and still never find it.

_Besides, if I died loving Victor, even naïvely, is that so bad? What else have I got – this shadow of a life here?_

He wished he could talk to Rahul. Anybody, for that matter. But so be it. He would just have to work this out on his own.

***

“Hey, can’t you do that somewhere else? We’re not finished with lunch here.”

Yuuri had pulled a large wooden chopping board from a cupboard and had been about to start preparing vegetables for dinner. He wanted to take his time with things this afternoon, maybe get finished early, and go for a jog before he came back to start the cooking proper. With Indian food, as with most Asian cuisine, most of the time and effort went into the preparation. Someone else was going to come in later and make vegetarian lasagne to try offering a second choice on the menu, so Yuuri didn’t have to worry about cooking for the entire commune this time, and figured he could probably handle this part of it by himself.

“There’s plenty of room, look,” he said, gesturing to the counter in front of him.

The older woman, who had long brown hair with streaks of gray and a low raspy voice, did not look pleased. The other two women who were there helping her stood and stared. “Can’t you just wait ’til we’re done here? Unless you want to help us do the dishes.”

“Fine – I’ll move if it’s bothering you,” Yuuri muttered, picking up the chopping board, a large and a small knife, and a big bag of vegetables. He shifted to a table on the other side of the counter. Not all of them had been cleared from the meal that had just been served, but this one seemed OK to use.

“Men – they love being chefs but they leave us to clean up after them,” he heard, which was followed by a couple of nervous giggles.

_Have a nice life,_ Yuuri thought in idle annoyance as he pulled out a couple of garlic bulbs, prised the cloves apart and started to peel. The women were soon talking among themselves, and Yuuri busied himself with chopping, nipping back behind the counter from time to time to fetch containers and other pieces of equipment. He’d never used a food processor at his apartment, because it hardly seemed worth the effort when he was cooking for one person, or even in small batches; but here it would have been a godsend. The aversion they had to gadgets was almost religious in its fervor, and he couldn’t understand it. Some means of entertainment when you were alone in your shack all evening would’ve been helpful at the very least. Like a radio. Yuuri still hadn’t gotten his hands on one. When he did, it would be worth its weight in gold.

Well, he supposed he wouldn’t be here much longer. He was going to go back to Boston.

His stomach dropped at the prospect while he continued to chop. With a final clatter, the women in the kitchen turned to leave; Yuuri heard the door shut behind them. Finally, he was alone in here, and could work without distractions. He moved everything back to a counter near the sink and opened a nearby window while he peeled and chopped the onions. This was always challenging to do in batches without his eyes beginning to stream.

He stared vacantly out the window for a moment, watching the trees sway in the breeze. Sometimes his heart gave a terrified lurch at the idea of what he was planning to do. Because he knew there could be no future for him back in Boston. He would not be able to work as a scientist. The Institute would still be looking for him, and they would no doubt stand a better chance of finding him there. The most he could hope for was to somehow convince Victor that he was telling him the truth about the Institute and the ESP, so that he could make informed choices about what he wanted to do. But even if Yuuri succeeded in getting that far – then what? Presumably Victor would also want to have his chip removed. But that would mean there would be no more work for him, either, in the career that was so important to him. What was he supposed to do, join Yuuri in exile? Would that be the only way they could be together, anyway?

_What exactly would I be asking him to do? Expecting from him?_

He sighed. Maybe this was how a bug caught in a jar felt, pinging over and over against the glass, believing it ought to be able to escape but hitting a solid barrier at every turn. Mechanically he finished slicing the onions, then stored them in large glass containers for later and pulled on a pair of thin gloves for seeding and chopping the chili peppers.

_It would be completely selfish to go barging in, expecting Victor to give everything up to come and join me in…in what kind of life, I don’t even know. Living on the streets. Begging. Odd-jobbing on farms like Saratoga Steve. Or hopping freight trains to get back out here, because this is such an idyllic life._

He was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to kick something in frustration. _Why the hell is this even happening? I’ve never done any harm._

After chopping for a while longer, he decided the most important thing was to inform Victor of the truth about the organization he worked for. Assuming he didn’t already know it. Assuming he would believe what Yuuri had to tell him, even though he had no proof. Because it was his duty to do that. If Victor was the person he thought he was, he would _want_ to know.               

Maybe there was some way to communicate with him that didn’t involve leaving California, let alone returning to Boston.

Feeling suddenly sick at the thought of that, Yuuri realized how much he wanted to see Victor again. Just to talk face to face, even if…even if it was for the last time.

_No. Surely it can’t end that way._

_Then what else am I expecting?_

_Jesus, this is impossible._

He carefully rinsed his gloves, then removed them and hung them on a towel rail to dry. Stacking the containers of vegetables neatly on top of each other on the counter, he located the large ceramic mortar and pestle, took several large bags of whole spices from the cupboards, went over to the scale, and started measuring out the quantities he needed. Coriander first. A few of the tiny round golden seeds dropped to the tiled floor and pinged when they hit. Never mind.

As he crushed the seeds in the bowl, the pestle making high, clear clinking and grating noises, he gradually became aware of a warmth spreading through his abdomen and radiating to the rest of his body. Soothing, peaceful. Like luxuriating in the soft long grasses of a lush meadow on a summer’s day, under the bright sun. Or…stroking velvet.

_[Hi,]_ he sent with a grin, deeply grateful for the distraction as he continued to work. _[I’m glad you’re here.]_

_[I’m glad I found you. It isn’t always easy.]_

_[I can’t find anybody at all. They all find me. How do you do it?]_

_[You’re the only one I’ve ever found. I just concentrate very hard.]_

_[You’re good at it.]_ Yuuri chuckled.

_[I’m going to try sending information about where I am. I wish you could be here with me.]_

_[OK.]_ Yuuri wondered what they had in mind. Sharing knowledge and images with presences like this was different from doing it with people who were physically in the vicinity, he’d discovered. The distance somehow made it more difficult and vague. Or maybe the problem was that he knew so little about these people. The simple act of meeting someone in person, however briefly, could tell you so much more about them than you’d otherwise be able to gather.

He noticed an idea entering his mind, almost like a daydream. But he didn’t think it was his own. Shadowy, almost black on deeper black. But then he got the impression of a sky, lit with warm colors. A ribbon running ahead from the horizon, with something crossing it. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to help it along; to lighten and focus. It felt like Velvet was trying hard too. But after a few minutes of this, the most he could say was that he’d seen a sunrise or sunset someplace where there was a large river and a bridge that had vertical beams or somesuch protruding from it. If this was what Velvet was seeing now? A sunrise, he calculated, would be somewhere in eastern Asia, and sunset on the east coast of the U.S. That wasn’t a great deal of help, but at least they’d achieved something.

_[It’s lovely,]_ he sent.

_[Your turn now.]_ There was a brightness to this that reminded Yuuri of a dog waiting for a stick to be thrown, and he laughed, remembering how Velvet had thought of their own dog when he had encouraged them in those frightening early days to find a thought that would anchor them.

Yuuri glanced around as he emptied the powdered coriander into a container, sealed it with a lid, and measured out cumin seeds next, then decanted these from the scale to the bowl. There wasn’t really anything distinctive here to look at…but sight was only one of five senses, after all. The only other one he remembered exploring with the presences was sound. So what about smell?

Focusing his concentration, he inhaled deeply as he crushed the seeds. The pungent aroma almost made him choke. For something with such an idiosyncratic flavor that was crucial to so many Asian, Mexican and Middle Eastern dishes, its smell was rather offputting; Yuuri thought it was a lot like sweaty armpits.

  _[?]_

Maybe this wasn’t going to work. He poured the powder into another container, then decided just to take in the scents of other spices quickly. He opened a bag full of curlicued cinnamon sticks and breathed in. Yes, that was much more pleasant. Then the earthy smell of turmeric, and the sweetness of cardamom. He opened a bottle of rosewater and inhaled. Then pulled the lid off the garlic-and-ginger mixture he’d chopped and smelled that. It shot up his nose like fire.

_[Are you…cooking? Eastern food?]_

Yuuri’s heart gave a little leap. _[Yes.]_

_[I think…I smell the spices. Or have an idea of them. But I don’t know them very well.]_

_[But you’re right! That’s great.]_ In that case, he’d probably been seeing an east-coast sunset instead of an Asian sunrise. East coast…

“John, if you’ve got a minute…hey, it smells divine in here. I don’t know what we did before you started cooking all these amazing things for us.”

Meadow had entered the kitchen and was examining the containers Yuuri had stacked on the counter. He wasn’t pleased that she’d interrupted his session, but life often intruded on these things; that was simply how it was.

_[I have to go now,]_ he sent. _[Sorry. I want to be with you again…please come back.]_

_[I will. I want to be with you, too.]_

Yuuri had no desire to pull away. He felt for a moment like he was floating on a cloud.

“You OK there?”

“Sorry,” Yuuri said, coming back to himself. “Yeah, I’m fine. So what can I – ”

“I need to know what you’re planning to cook over the next few weeks. I’m asking everyone who does shifts here, so I can put some orders in. Though it helps if you can use what the farms around here can provide for us.”

“I, um…OK. Let me just find a pad of paper and a pencil, and I’ll be right with you.”

He mostly thought about Velvet’s sunset, river and bridge while they talked, the hazy images flickering through his mind.

***

A few days later, after helping to serve lunch, Yuuri had shouldered his backpack, as he continued to do wherever he went, and made a trip out to a weathering red wooden barn on the periphery of the commune, pulling a handcart along with him. Before he’d come here, he wouldn’t even have known what you called one of these things, a little wooden wagon with two big wheels and a bar at the front to push in front of you.

_Remind me what century this is again. Oh, and the clothes too._ He absently hooked a thumb under the strap of a suspender.

It was a glorious day for late November. At least, to someone who was used to seeing snow by this time of year. It was close to a pleasant room temperature, with the hint of a dry breeze. He was surrounded by scrubby fields and rolling hills with stands of trees dotting them for kilometers. The stream meandered in the distance, Palomar Mountain rising up not far behind. Now that the Patels were gone, he knew he would miss the place more than the people, sad as it was to say.

In a few days, he intended to begin his journey back east. He’d told Meadow, who hadn’t ever troubled to get to know him or help him integrate into the community in any way, but was obviously disappointed that she would be losing a laborer and cook. Well, he wasn’t going to shed any tears over it, though he did thank her in all honesty for allowing him to stay.

He intended to hop freight trains again. At least he’d know more about what he was doing this time. He’d been to the Cloud café and printed out as many maps and timetables of routes as he thought he would need. With luck, it wouldn’t be hard to get _into_ the U.S., as most of the illegal traffic went in the opposite direction.

When he arrived at the barn, he opened the large double doors, allowing the sunlight to shine into the room, which smelled of earth and hay. The floor was covered with straw; there were stacks of bales, and a ladder leading up to a loft. He pushed the cart inside, dropped the bar, removed his backpack, and went in search of the bags of onions and potatoes he was after.

He thought of Velvet again while he lifted a couple of bags and carried them over to sling them into the cart. They’d been on his mind even more than usual lately. Was it because they’d gone uncharacteristically quiet over the past few days? Sure, he was worried – probably over nothing; he had no idea of the lives any of the presences led, after all. But it had started before that…just popping into his mind. _Velvet._ Why? And what was it about that image they’d sent Yuuri that kept niggling at him? It was, he thought, something to do with the bridge. But that was just a dark shape in his mind. He couldn’t make anything of it.  

More potatoes. While he was out here, he grabbed a few bags of carrots as well. Then he sat down on a hay bale, his backpack on the ground next to him, taking a moment to enjoy the silence before hauling the cart back to the lodge.

A fluttery feeling arose in his chest, and he glanced around the barn, suddenly more alert. The fluttering was telling him something. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to, though, not in this context.

And then a mental tug. Like a magnet being drawn to another magnet. He knew the feel of the other magnet, because he’d felt it almost every day for weeks. Since that consciousness had first reached out to contact him.

_Velvet._ And they were _here._ Physically present, and approaching the barn.

Before he could begin to wonder at this, the image of the bridge entered his mind again, and suddenly came into clear focus.

The salt-and-pepper-shaker bridge over the Charles River, near MIT in Boston.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ he thought, _this changes everything._

He jumped to his feet just as a shadow spilled through the doorway of the barn. Lost in a panicked swirl of thoughts, Yuuri had no time to react before someone stepped into view.

“Ah. So it _is_ you,” came the quiet voice he knew so well.

Victor’s grin was warm. He wore a plain black V-neck T-shirt and black slacks, his long pale bangs hanging foppishly as always over his left eye. One hand curled around the wall of the doorway; the other hung loosely at his side.

Yuuri stood and stared.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if you received a notification that Chapter 38 was posted a night early! I often save the next instalment early as drafts, and that one got through the net, but it was quickly caught.

**Two and a half months earlier**

**Cambridge, Massachusetts**

 

Victor sat down on the smooth gray fabric of the sofa, hazy white light shimmering through the net curtains across the windows. It looked like it was probably a beautiful day. He wouldn’t know. Lifting his hand to his mouth, he popped two ibuprofen in, then chased them down with a glass of water, and lay down, his head propped against a small cushion.

He’d cancelled his trip to Columbia this weekend. The Institute hadn’t been pleased, but they could please themselves. There was no way he was leaving here when Yuuri had disappeared. It made him feel faint and sick to think of him wandering around in what was clearly no fit state to be able to take care of himself. There were countless predators out there who were eager to take advantage of unfortunate people in a vulnerable condition. Accidents waiting to happen. Paranoid and delusional, possibly hallucinating, there was no telling what was going through his mind; what kind of nightmare state he was trapped in, with no escape.

“Yuuri,” he choked out, placing a hand over his face as his tears ran again. It was unbearable to simply lie here like this and contemplate it. But he wasn’t sure what to do next.

Friday – two days ago – he’d watched Yuuri pull a stun gun on him, then accuse him of being a spy, and of forcing operations on people; even…even _killing_ them. It stuck him like a nest of needles every time he thought about it. His Yuuri, believing he could be capable of such things.

He pulled his ring off his finger, held it up, and examined it yet again, unable to discern anything threatening about the ancient design. But then, people who had had a psychotic break could find threat in anything. Statuettes on a wedding cake that came to life and started to speak. Aliens who visited in the night and took them away to do unspeakable things. Voices that appeared from nowhere and filled their ears with invective. The schizophrenic world was far more surreal and bizarre, Victor knew, than anything the creative mind of a sane person could invent.

_And Yuuri’s lost in it. If he comes to any harm, I’ll never forgive myself._

How could he not have realized how sick Yuuri was? A cold stab of fear had run through Victor when he’d mentioned the presences, as he called them. But he was absolutely correct in saying that plenty of people were on record as having heard voices – all right, so he didn’t hear them physically, but that was perhaps beside the point – and they didn’t have any history of psychiatric illness, and otherwise seemed to function normally. That appeared to be the case for Yuuri. Victor had seen no further evidence of possible psychosis. The anxiety was different; it was not a complete break with reality. Furthermore, Phichit had insisted Yuuri had been fine all the time he’d known him. He’d held down a career. Was intelligent and…warm, loving, kind.

And Victor had sat back and watched while Yuuri’s world caved in around him, completely oblivious until it was too late. It was Anna all over again. Worse, maybe. Because this time he’d had the power to prevent it. In hindsight, the belief in the presences should have been enough to ring alarm bells.

_I should’ve known. I could’ve done something sooner._

There was no reasoning with a person in that state. He’d been aware of that fact, of course…but in the terrible shock and urgency of the moment, it was all he’d been able to think of trying. The result was that Yuuri had run into the building, still brandishing the gun and telling him not to follow.

So Victor had done the next thing he could think of: he’d found Phichit. By the time he’d located which building the young man was in and brought him back to Building 46, however, Yuuri was gone. In desperation, Victor had raced around the immediate area outside, and checked in the T station; then he took the trains to Yuuri’s apartment and checked there as well. But if he was in, he didn’t answer. One of the neighbors eventually heard him knocking on the front door and calling Yuuri’s name, and agreed to try Yuuri’s apartment door, but returned saying there had been no response. Victor had been trying to call via his chip as well, with no success.

Journeying back to Building 46, he met with Phichit in the office, who reported that Yuuri had called him on his tablet. Victor asked him to play the conversation back. He hadn’t wanted to at first, but grudgingly conceded when Victor pleaded. Yuuri had to go away, he’d said in a voice that pierced Victor’s heart as it wobbled with fear. He didn’t know for how long. He might not be able to come back. He couldn’t tell Phichit where he was, but he wanted to say goodbye.

That was the most recent communication anyone had had from him, as far as Victor was aware. He got his own tablet out and tried to call Yuuri, who didn’t answer. So he left a video message, speaking calmly even though he didn’t feel it inside, and asking him to come back, or at least contact him so they could talk.

He’d done everything else he could think of. The authorities wouldn’t be interested yet, as Yuuri was an adult and free to do as he chose. Phichit was unfortunately unable to shed any further light on likely places where Yuuri might have gone. Eliciting a promise to tell him if he heard from Yuuri again, Victor traveled around Boston on what he knew from the start was likely to be a wild goose chase; but it was better than sitting still and doing nothing. He tried Yuuri’s apartment again, several times. The same neighbor he’d met before had said he hadn’t seen or heard anything, though he buzzed Yuuri’s apartment again, only to receive no response. Victor went to the coffee shop around the corner, which he knew Yuuri enjoyed visiting. They hadn’t seen him. He tried stalls at the market. The Chinese grocery. The Public Garden and the Common. The bar in Beacon Hill where Yuuri had taken them for lunch that first day they’d spent together. At the thought of it, it felt like some heavy weight was crushing Victor’s head and chest. He tried other stores near where Yuuri lived; places where maybe he’d stocked up on some provisions before he’d gone away. But no one Victor spoke to had seen him recently. This had filled all of Friday and Saturday. Today, he was nursing his aches and wracking his brain for ideas. He sat up and recorded another video message, unable to recall how many he’d already sent.

He ended up hanging around his apartment all day, jumping every time he got a call on his chip or tablet; though none of them were from Yuuri. He couldn’t eat. He could hardly think. It was the longest day of his life.

And yet on Monday he somehow forced himself to follow his usual schedule. As he did Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the rest of the week. He still went to MIT and worked on the study; they hadn’t finished preparing the second phase, and the analysis of the raw data from the first was nowhere near complete. Though the joy he’d felt at what he’d been achieving with Yuuri had flipped to become the opposite. Yuuri’s intelligence, enthusiasm and creativity were evident in every section. Every _sentence._ As if the words held an echo of the soul of their author. At the same time, the distant formal register – entirely appropriate for an academic paper – just seemed to draw a big bold line under the fact that Yuuri had run away _because he thought Victor had been out to get him._ It was a world away from the sensual, soft-voiced man who’d asked Victor to take him to his bedroom and wrapped his legs around his waist to allow him to carry him there. How, _how,_ could it all have gone so completely wrong?

By the time Saturday came, he felt he had no choice but to go to New York. The Institute would keep him busy, since they would have had to cancel several operations last weekend at short notice. But he was simply going through the motions, he knew. The waves of his life were carrying him in their wake. It was difficult to think of anything other than Yuuri, and the worry was pressing on him, making his very limbs heavy.

It always felt good to know he was taking away the demons that haunted the patients who came to him. If only he could do the same for Yuuri.

Forcing himself to eat a sandwich he didn’t taste in a nondescript little gray breakroom over lunchtime, he was surprised to be joined at his table by Adam, the man who’d made a clumsy attempt to seduce him in a bar the last time they’d met. Best forgotten about, he supposed. Unable to force himself to begin a stilted conversation, he simply looked up with placid eyes, then bit his sandwich and chewed. Americans made the most abysmal excuse for what they called “cheese” in the entire world, he decided. Closely followed by their version of mayonnaise. But it was food. Ostensibly.

“They said I’d find you here,” Adam began, sitting down on a wooden chair. Like Victor, he wore black slacks and a button-down white long-sleeved shirt, though he also had a suit jacket despite the warm weather, which he had draped over the chair back. His dark hair was slicked away from his forehead, and hazel eyes met blue.

Victor flicked a glance at him and continued to eat.

“I, ah, heard you’d been having some trouble with your research partner, Dr. Katsuki – ”

“You told me to contact you when I had results from the study. I haven’t got any yet.” Not that he’d intended to do so anyway, he thought.

“Now, you’re misunderstanding me here, Victor. I’m concerned about Dr. Katsuki.”

Victor turned his head and looked at him. “Why?”

“What do you understand about his ideas regarding mental illness, ESP and the chip?”

There was a pause while Victor continued to eye him. “Why?” he asked again. “What’s it got to do with you?”

“He disappeared, didn’t he? After he pointed a stun gun at you and made all kinds of wild accusations?”

Victor put his sandwich down on the plate in front of him and turned his whole body to face Adam. “How do you know about that?”

Adam threw his hands up in a placating gesture. “He’s got a history of mental illness, which you’re probably aware of. That’s what we work with here, isn’t it? He’s been on our radar for a long time. Just keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else. He’s…had this kind of thing happen to him before, and he was on medications that worked. But he stopped taking them. And now, unfortunately, he seems to have slipped through the net. We’d been hoping that you’d be able to persuade him to have the operation – there’s no better representative for that in this case than you.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been listening over his chip?”

“Of course not,” Adam said, shaking his head. “We’re not authorized to do that. There are other ways of keeping tabs on things. It wouldn’t surprise you, would it, to know that there are security cameras in front of the neuroscience building, and they picked up everything that went on between the two of you last week?”

Victor looked down and slumped his shoulders.

“We’ve got some people trying to find him and bring him here for the operation. I thought you ought to know.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Victor said in an urgent tone, his eyes widening. “Don’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. If you do – ”

“It’s OK, Victor.” Adam’s voice had dropped and softened. “We just want to help. He’s a very talented scientist, after all, and he could go on to do a lot of good. We’d still be happy for you to perform the operation yourself. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Victor whispered. “Have…have you got any leads on where he might have gone?”

“I wish I could say yes. That’s another reason I came here to talk to you; but it sounds like you haven’t heard anything either.”

“No, I…no.” He gave a soft sigh.

“He’s had his chip removed, which isn’t helpful. Though that goes along with the symptoms of paranoia, I guess. But we can work with that. We’ve put his picture on billboards and in the local news, asking people to contact us if they spot him. There were a few sightings with surveillance cameras near MIT not long after he left the building, though he seems to have caught on to that pretty fast, and we haven’t managed to get any other glimpses of him yet. I guess he’s more lucid than any of us thought.”

“He’s also very intelligent,” Victor said, feeling an absurd need to stand up for Yuuri despite the fact that he _wanted_ him to be found. “Don’t underestimate him, even…even when he’s, you know – ”

“Psychotic.”

Victor looked away and put his head in his hand. That was bad enough. And the fact that they were talking about Yuuri as if he were some animal they were hunting down was turning his stomach. It felt wrong somehow, even though he knew it was the best thing to do.

“Have you got any of those surveillance photos?” he asked, slowly turning back to face Adam. “I’d like to see them.”   

“You mean you haven’t already? They’re publicly available. Let me see.” His gaze lost focus as he accessed his chip. “Here’s the one that was on the billboard near MIT. I’ll send it.”

Victor received it, opened it, and looked at it. Yuuri, dressed as he had been that Friday he disappeared, a frightened and desperate look on his face as he fled down a sidewalk on some busy street. He gasped, and tears sprang to his eyes. More than anything, he just wanted to reach into the photo, grab that troubled man, wrap his arms around him and never let him go. _Poor Yuuri. Oh my love – what were you going through? What’s happening to you now? I didn’t even get the chance to tell you how I feel about you. It just never seemed to be the right time somehow._

“Victor,” Adam said gently, obviously noting his distress, “tell us, won’t you, if you hear anything about him at all? Even the most insignificant clue might help.”

He nodded. “You do the same.”

“Course we will.” He stood, patted Victor on the shoulder, then pulled his coat on and left the room.

Victor took a shuddering breath and sat back in his chair. He’d never known them to be so concerned about a potential patient before. But given Yuuri’s scientific acumen, and the fact that he was special to Victor, who in turn was special to the Institute…well, maybe it was no big mystery.

 _Yuuri…please let them find you and bring you back. Or contact me. Or someone else. Anything. I’m so worried about you, baby._ And then the tears were once again trailing down his cheeks.

***

During the week that followed, he attended speaking engagements and video conferences about some of his past and present work. He was used to losing himself in it all; but if people thought he was a little less forthcoming, a bit more reticent, the smile not quite so charming…Well, he could only do his best. It was better to try to keep himself busy, he knew, than to sit and stew with all of his worries. But it was so difficult to concentrate. His heart still gave a little leap every time he got a call, hoping that if it wasn’t Yuuri, it would be news of him; but he was disappointed on every occasion. He left more video messages, with no way of knowing if Yuuri was receiving them.

For a while, it was hard even to sit in his apartment, as the memory of their last night together came so readily to mind. How they’d sat here looking into each other’s eyes while he’d told Yuuri that he wanted to stay and be with him. Dancing in the living room. Yuuri’s arms wrapped around him, their cheeks touching, lips brushing. Yuuri had seemed to want their relationship to become more sexual ever since their trip to Qi, though whether the trip itself had flipped a switch inside of him or whether it had been something else, he wasn’t sure. It hadn’t mattered. He’d been looking forward to exploring so many pleasures together, taking their intimacy to a new level. And then…

He wished he’d never decided to use the Orphic egg symbol for the Institute. Though if he’d chosen something else, maybe the result would have been the same. Something about his ring had set Yuuri off. There was no telling what it was. Maybe his fevered mind had latched onto the most esoteric thing within sight at the time. Victor had been open-minded enough to at least consider what Yuuri had said about telepathically receiving the image from the presences he was supposedly in contact with, though he’d quickly decided it was unlikely. But it being connected with forced operations and killings? That was up there with wedding-cake statuettes coming to life and alien abductions. Poor Yuuri.

He’d folded the pair of socks Yuuri had left in the bedroom and placed them on a shelf. Couldn’t quite bring himself to throw the cupuaçu truffles away; somehow it felt like if he did that, he was trashing all the beauty that the evening had contained before Yuuri had run away. He couldn’t eat them either, though, and left them out in the faculty lounge at Harvard. They’d disappeared within a day. When he thought about how happy he was when he’d bought them – a playfully flirtatious mood mixed with anticipation that was almost giddy, because Yuuri _wanted_ him and Victor _knew_ it, and just maybe they could have a future together…it made the sick feeling in his gut that much worse.

He returned to his apartment in New York the following Saturday, hoping he might catch more than a glimpse of Chris this time; he’d contacted Victor the previous weekend to tell him he’d be busy with an acting stint, though he’d still made time to drop by and say hello – and provide a shoulder for some tears to fall on when Victor told him about Yuuri. He was pleased that Chris was getting some good work, of course, but the apartment seemed empty and lonely without the vivacious man around. By the time he left for Columbia Sunday morning, however, there had still been no sign of him. He completed his final scheduled operation, then attended an early dinner with an old colleague that he’d decided to arrange after his conversation with Adam. Perhaps it would put some of his concerns to rest.

Victor had known Dr. Yevgeny Korovin for years; first in Russia and then in New York, when they’d founded the Coughlin Institute. Zhenya was an eminent psychiatrist, and he’d taken the reins from that angle, as well as dealing with funding and administration, while Victor had accepted most of the hands-on work – performing operations, training a select few others to do them as well, and guiding research to better understand the changes they were making in the brain and how the procedure could be improved. But when he’d switched to only working for the Institute on weekends, and not every one at that, he’d inevitably had to hand over many of his responsibilities to others. Maybe that hadn’t been working out as well as he’d thought.

Zhenya lived in a palatial home on an estate in the southern Hudson River Valley. Unlike Victor, his family had old money. They had met at university; and while Victor had gone on to work at Columbia because of its outstanding neuroscience department, Zhenya had trailed along because it was a change of scene. Both of them, however, had been dedicated to using their expertise to help people with psychosis, and to that end the Coughlin Institute had been born, named after a beneficent donor without whom the organization would probably have not gotten off the ground. If anyone could put him at his ease about the current state of affairs, Victor thought, it was this man he was visiting today.

They were sitting at a round glass table on an expansive deck behind the red-brick edifice. Plates full of homemade Russian food filled its expanse: pirozhki, little meat-filled pastries; lamb shashlik on skewers with smetana, Russian sour cream, on the side; a summer fruit salad; various pickled vegetables; pryaniki, the honey-spice cookies that Victor loved. They both sipped at kvass and served themselves vodka in small crystal glasses. Ordinarily Victor would have thought it a meal fit for a king. Today, however, he’d barely nibbled at the delicacies on offer.

“Vitya, if you don’t eat, you’ll waste away,” Korovin said in Russian, and laughed. He was on the short and stocky side, with a mop of brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. Both of them were in their business clothes, black slacks and white shirts. Business, always business in New York. Victor sipped more kvass and picked up a pryanik, staring at it and crumbling off a small piece to eat.

“I’m sorry. I’m not doing this beautiful food any justice. Please tell your cook I don’t mean any offense.”

“I quite understand.” Korovin had polished off a couple of plates brimming over, and was sitting back in his white-painted wrought-iron chair, fingers threaded together across his belly as he regarded his comrade. “You’re worried about this missing scientist, of course you are. You two are close, aren’t you?”

Victor nodded. “And…there are some things about this business that bother me, Zhenya. I don’t know so much about what’s been going on since I moved to Cambridge, but to be honest with you, I’ve been worried since the federal government got involved with the Institute, started making things classified, and so on. I never – ”

“I know, I know,” Korovin jumped in, lifting a hand briefly and waving it. “You never liked it in the first place. But we all agreed, didn’t we, that the extra funding it brought would help? Funding for research, Vitya. Which you’ve always done brilliantly.”

“Well…” He looked down at the table. “I’ve just wondered sometimes if the Institute might be losing its way a bit.” Now he looked up and met Korovin’s eyes. “Not that I’ve ever stopped believing in what we do – I still see the benefits with every patient we help. But I haven’t felt…comfortable about some of the people who have been hired since then. Adam Lafaye, for example. I met with him again last weekend. He’s always firing questions at me. I don’t like him, Zhenya; there’s something about him that doesn’t sit right. He reminds me of…what do they call government spies here? He reminds me of a spook.”

Korovin laughed heartily. “You’re too used to having eyes in the back of your head, Vitya. But that’s how it is in our country, so who can blame us? It’s not as bad as that here. Though…if he _is_ a spook someone’s planted? So what? I’m not ashamed of anything we do. None of it’s secret from the government.”

Victor leaned forward, his voice low and grave. “He dismissed the fact that Yuuri had his chip removed as simple paranoia. But everyone knows that certain people can get information from it if they want. If they’re looking. So if you’re going on the run, and you believe a government-affiliated organization is after you, I imagine the first thing you’d do is get rid of it. That’s not paranoia, it’s common sense. I don’t know how stupid Adam thinks I am – ”

“I’m sure he’s well aware of your scintillating scientific record, my friend. But, if you don’t mind…” He paused and poured himself more vodka, then did the same for Victor. “…let me play devil’s advocate for the jack – which, as you say, may be more than he deserves. But so. Don’t you think running away, as your…friend…did, is a bit of an extreme action to take? Hm? He ran out on his job, and on you. Pulled a gun on you, even, isn’t that right? Are those the actions of a sane man? After all, why not just turn your chip off?”

Victor gazed at him for a moment with a clouded brow. “Come on, Zhenya. We both know it’s not so simple. That’s just what people are led to believe.”

Korovin contemplated his fingers for a moment, then looked back up at Victor. “Of course. But if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, isn’t that what they say?” He took a sip of vodka and grinned.

“Do you believe that?”

Korovin chuckled grimly. “Now Vitya, you’ll make me worry that this missing scientist has transferred some of his paranoia to you. Fortunately, I know better than to believe it’s contagious.”

Victor fell silent. He finished his pryanik for something to do, and drained the rest of his kvass. Then he looked again at Korovin, who was lounging back and waiting serenely. “Zhenya…” He paused, and then continued. “…you make sure there’s been proper consent from every patient before they undergo the operation, don’t you?”

Korovin exhaled and considered Victor keenly. “Why would you think I’d do otherwise? That’s always been our policy, from day one. Of course we obtain consent. You’ll make me change my mind about paranoia being contagious at this rate.” His tone was still playful, but there was a faint edge to it now.

“Yes…I know. I’m sorry.” Victor raked a hand back through his hair.

“You’ve got a lot on your mind. Maybe you ought to take a break for a while. We’ve got people here who can cover for you.”

“No…no, that’s OK. I’d rather keep up with everything I do. But…” His voice hitched. “…if Yuuri’s found, I want to be told immediately, Zhenya. I want to go to him. The state he’s in…it could terrify him, and he’d be alone.”

“No problem, my friend. And rest assured, we’re doing everything we can to help. I know how important he is to you, and we’ve always taken care of our own, haven’t we? Maybe once he’s well again, he could even come here and work alongside you. Would you like that?”

Victor gave him a small grin. “Let’s just find him first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> n.b. See Chapter 11 notes for a recipe for pryaniki.


	37. Chapter 37

“Victor? Hey, Victor?” Chris called as he walked into the apartment. “Coco, turn the music down, darling.”

Something like conscious awareness tried to throb into Victor’s skull. He groaned and beat it back.

“There you are.” Chris’s voice was getting closer. “What are you doing slumped over the kitchen table – oh.”

Victor sat up, and his stomach gave a small lurch. There was clear liquid on the table – drool or tears or a mixture of both, he wasn’t sure. He could only have put his head down for a moment, because the song was still playing.

“How much of this did you drink?” Chris asked, briefly picking up the empty bottle of vodka to examine it.

“Well if I’d drunk the whole thing, I’d be dead, wouldn’t I?” Victor muttered, placing a hand against his clammy forehead. “Russian fellow I met with for dinner said I should take the bottle back with me because I liked it. I, um…I can’t remember how much was in it. But I’m not _that_ drunk.”

“Jeez, Victor. I walk in and you’ve got the Friday playing ‘Unchained Melody’ while you’re sitting here sobbing into your vodka. There’s never been any middle ground with this steer of yours, has there? First you’re mooning after him, then you’re on cloud nine because the two of you are finally together, and now you’re flayed because he’s gone. And I mean _flayed._ Why are you torturing yourself like this?”

Victor forced his eyes to focus, and wiped his face with his shirt cuff. Chris was wearing tight black jeans and a sparkly magenta tank top that exposed his abdomen. Christ knew where he’d been or what he’d been doing, acting or clubbing or whatever. “Not torturing myself. That was our song. We danced to it.”

“Original.” Chris ran idle fingers over the empty vodka bottle and then looked at him. “Problem with romantic songs like that is when something goes wrong, they’re like dirges, jack. It’s not gonna help you to listen to this.” Suddenly the song came to an end, and silence fell. “You weren’t planning on flying back tonight, were you?”

Victor sat back in his chair and sniffed. His eyes felt dry and red. “No. I was going to go back in the morning. Though…how long I’ll keep doing it, I’m not sure. I went there for him, Chris. That was the reason I left. I took a chance on Yuuri.” He sniffed again.

Chris smiled and shook his head. “Some genius you are, eh? You still fuck up just like the rest of us. But I’m glad you weren’t gonna try to travel anywhere; you’re not in any state to be doing that, hon.”

“I did _not_ fuck up,” Victor said in a sudden blaze, giving the table a slap with a palm. “Yuuri and I have…had… _have_ something special.”

“I believe you,” Chris said quietly. “I just hate seeing what this has done to you, y’know? I’ve never seen you so crushed after you’ve broken up with someone.”

“Well I’m worried about him, OK? I love him and I’m worried about him. And I do _not_ consider us broken up. He’s sick. There are people trying to find him.”

Chris came closer to the table and rested his arms on it, meeting Victor’s eyes. “Didn’t you say Yuuri’d had a mental breakdown of some kind? Are you sure?”

Victor nodded.

“So – and I know this might be a hard question to answer, especially when you’ve drunk I don’t know how much vodka, but bear with me – how do you decide when someone’s out of their right mind so far that they can’t make good decisions for themselves, and someone else has to? Is that what you and these people looking for Yuuri are doing? Or are you so upset about him leaving that this is a good excuse to try to fix things?”

Victor sat and stared. “Jesus, Chris.”

“I’m only asking.”

“That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair? Maybe it’s not fair to Yuuri to have you jacks chasing after him. What was he like, last time you saw him?”

“He asked me if I’d been sent to spy on him. If I’d been killing people who have ESP.” Victor sniffed again and wiped his sleeve over his eyes. “He pulled a stun gun on me and told me not to follow.” 

Chris’s green eyes opened wide. “Jesus. I…you didn’t tell me what exactly happened, last time you were here, and I thought you were too upset for me to ask. If you’d just said…well, I’m sorry.”

“He’s either schizz – schizz – you know what I mean. Or he’s having some kind of psychotic episode. So yeah, if he’s still that far gone, I don’t know…if it’s for his own good, maybe they’ll bring him back even if he doesn’t want to come. I said I need to be there, though. I…I can’t let them do that to him if I’m not there with him.” Victor began to weep openly.

“Shit, jack,” Chris said softly, shaking his head again, “mental illness has gotta be one of the most painful things anyone can go through – for the person _and_ the people who care about them. I had a boyfriend once who got real depressed when he’d been out of a job for a long time. It just…it whacks the sack, y’know? I thought we were both going crazy there for a while.”

“I don’t like that word,” Victor muttered.

“Yeah…OK. Anyway, they’ll find him, Victor, don’t you worry. Are you helping? What’ve you done so far?”

Victor explained, though it was hard at times to get his lips to move the way he wanted them to. “No one knows where he is,” he concluded. “Not his friend Phichit, even.”

“He got any family?”

“I’ve never met them. He says they’re in Oxford. They don’t get along, so I doubt he’d want to go to them. But anyway, I guess that’s one of the first places he’d expect people to look.”

“Maybe.” They were both silent for a moment. “You know, once my acting job here’s done, I could come and stay in Cambridge with you for a while. I bet I could find some work there. Keep you company?”

Victor’s expression softened. “It’s nice of you to offer, Chris. But it’s OK. You stay here and do whatever you need to do. I’ll be fine.” Victor also remembered how irritating Chris could be as a roommate at times. They’d never been on more comfortable terms than they were now, when they only saw each other a few times a month. He wasn’t in any hurry to spoil that.

“OK, well, suit yourself, hon. But if you want to talk, give me a call, day or night. And…” He pinged the glass bottle with two fingers so that it rang. “…don’t let this be your best friend.”

***

That was easier said than done, as it turned out. Victor had forgotten how effectively the acuteness of pain could become muffled by alcohol, like slipping a pair of earplugs in to drown out noise. At first he went out to restaurants, bars and dance clubs and drank, so that between those activities and work, he had little free time in which to ruminate. But apart from discovering some nice food, it did not improve his mood. He was not trying to rope a steer at any of the venues; though he found himself having to turn down men and women who’d made it clear they were interested in him. Once the initial flattered feelings wore off, it just got awkward. A few times, briefly, he considered losing himself in casual sex. But the older he got, the more those encounters had seemed to him like two people using each other as sex toys, which wasn’t particularly respectful to either one. He loved Yuuri, and that was who he wanted to be with. Even though it was tearing him apart.

He drank responsibly. OK, so he kept a bottle or two in the Cambridge apartment. He might dip into it during an evening when he was doing work for Harvard. Not every one, of course. Sometimes a nip after work, to unwind with. A drop never passed his lips before an operation at the Institute. As time went by, drinking _in_ the apartment replaced drinking _out_ of the apartment. Hope could be an ephemeral thing. A few weeks passed, still with no news of Yuuri, and they might as well have been a few years, the way they crept. No answers to his video messages; no way of knowing if Yuuri had even looked at them. He could be anywhere. _Anywhere._

Sleep was becoming more elusive, too. He would often toss and turn for what felt like a long time, unable to drop off, then consult his chip and discover only ten minutes had passed. Twenty, next time he checked. Sometimes he used the time to read recently published research in the scientific journals, since his mind refused to quiet down. It needed something to work on. But he wasn’t in the mood to try to invent things or dream up new studies. If he had the slightest clue to Yuuri’s whereabouts, he would be on it in an instant, he knew.

One night it felt like he’d only just managed to fall asleep when he was yanked out of it dramatically; as if someone had taken hold of his entire body and pulled with immense force, though he hadn’t actually shifted much from his position in bed. And oh god, what was happening? He felt incredible. Breaths coming quickly, warmth radiating throughout his body. He had been dreaming of Yuuri; of what might have happened if he’d never spotted his ring and then had that episode – and he still _was_ dreaming, apparently; the images entering his mind seemingly of their own accord. Instead of leaping out of bed in a panic, Yuuri was lying on his back, panting and eager. Victor had mounted him and was thrusting, hot and hard and deep, and Yuuri’s head was thrown back, moaning and calling out his name, writhing in surprisingly wanton abandon for someone who’d never done this before. It was driving Victor mad with lust. He could hardly hold himself back, and gave up trying, erupting into a thunderous orgasm that shook through his entire body, his cries spilling into the dark silent room; Yuuri’s an almost physical echo as he came at the same time, fingers digging into Victor’s shoulders.

When it was over, Victor lay motionless on top of the sheets, his breaths gradually easing. Had he ever had a dream so powerful; so _real_? This was not how he’d consciously envisioned their first time together. He would be gentle, considerate, let Yuuri guide things at his own pace. It was possible he might be nervous at first, or discover things he didn’t like. Victor was sure he’d never had epic sex like that even with regular partners, but well…it was just a dream, after all. An expression of his hopes and desires, nothing more. He certainly wouldn’t say no to being revisited by it another night. In fact, this would keep his imagination busy for a long time to come…if the reality hadn’t been what it was. And just like that, the flame was pinched out; and though his body was still hot and throbbing, it felt strangely disconnected from the worries that had sprung anew into his mind. He got up, pulled his briefs off, gave himself a cursory clean, and – 

It was as if the world was a ship on the ocean, during a raging storm. Tilting at a high angle one way, then the other. At the same time, sight and sound dimmed. There was a thud, soft, as if the noise had traveled through some syrupy medium to get to him, a pale version of its original self. A shot of pain, brief, again muffled somehow. The disconnected feeling rocketed, and Victor had the sensation of having been sucked into a different world – one where there was no direction, no sensory guidance, no body to experience any of these things. With a mind that was weaving drunkenly through a black void.

He opened his mouth and tried to say something. If he succeeded, he didn’t hear it. Wasn’t even sure he’d felt his lips move. Couldn’t feel his hands or feet. Something was trying to pull him down and under, a drowning man caught in a riptide. This time he tried to scream, but wasn’t sure if the sound was real or just in his head. Were his eyes open? Had he gone blind? He wanted to grab something, anything, but didn’t know if his fingers were working.

And the worst thing – the worst by far – was that he couldn’t tell what was inside and what was out. It all melted together. His head was a coffee mug that had overturned, spilling its contents everywhere. Dreams, memories, fears…they all jumped at him, demanding attention, pounding at the door. He thought he cringed and curled up, though maybe he imagined it.

 _This is what a psychotic break is like._ It hammered at the fragile bond that remained to hold his thoughts together, exploding it into splinters. He tried to scream again.

Here, now, he wasn’t sure that Victor Nikiforov existed anymore.

Somehow he continued to take breaths. Without words, he appealed to whatever deity might exist, begging for help; for an understanding of what was happening to him. For release from this nightmare world. _Help…please, help._

And to his utter surprise, someone else was suddenly there with him.

Not physically. He didn’t know how else he knew…he just did. In his mind. His heart? He couldn’t see them or hear them. It was like thinking about someone you knew well, and the feelings that came to you when you did. What they were like. How they connected with you. This person was friendly; kind. Centered, with both feet planted firmly on the ground. Telling him – without words, but imparting the message to him somehow anyway – that everything would be OK. They emphasized to Victor that he was not alone.

Of course it could be a complete fantasy, he told himself as he continued to feel as if he were lurching through the dark, numb and cold. Then he suddenly had the absurd urge to laugh. Because this was what he’d dedicated his life to – helping people with these symptoms. And now _he_ was the one who needed helping. He was the one who was going crazy.

He’d thought he’d known fear. Was sure he had. When his mother had gone and left him alone. Anna, then Yuuri, being pulled into the world of nightmares. But being there _himself_ …everything was gone; lost. He was consciousness scattered like dust motes in a beam of sunshine. Desperate for something familiar or safe, he locked onto the other person, though even they might be part of the _in_ becoming _out_ ; of illusion taking over.

_They think this is some exciting new ability? What the FUCK?_

Calm down, calm down, the person kept requesting. Never with words. A message beyond words. Whether it was real or not, it sounded like good advice. Victor _wanted_ to calm down. But _how_? Would he ever find himself in the ordinary world again, or was this it – had he snapped? Maybe he would become lucid years down the line and open his eyes to find himself in a padded cell.

 _Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,_ he thought or muttered, the old lines of some forgotten prayer tumbling out of the past.

This was the worst thing that could happen. Ever. _Ever._

He felt he might be crying.

The possibly imaginary person wanted to help. They radiated such a sense of peace; of loving warmth. Was this what an angel was like? But no…Victor got the sense, somehow, that this was a human being. Who were they; _where_ were they? Oh god, please let them be real.

Find an _anchor_ , they told him. A relationship, or even a pet, that he could hold on to, to keep him connected to the world he knew. And of course Makkachin sprang to mind. How he wished his warm, furry friend could be with him now…and with that, he felt the panic bleeding away from him, diluting. He imagined lying on his bed and holding her, her ribcage expanding with each breath. It seemed, somehow, that he couldn’t truly be lost in any sense if he could still conceive of this.

Oh, this person was good. Whoever they were, they seemed to know what was happening to him, and how to guide him through it. This wasn’t new to them; he knew that somehow. Hoping he wasn’t asking for more than they were willing to give, Victor sent a question to them in that same understanding-past-words way of communicating, asking if he could think of them as an anchor too; if that would be allowed. And to his surprise and relief, the answer was yes. 

Two perfect anchors.

He didn’t know when the exhaustion had grown so great that it overpowered the fear, but eventually his consciousness fell away into slumber.

***

Hard bare floor. That was the first thing he knew. And then…cold.

Victor shifted slowly, his muscles aching, head throbbing. But…good, that was all good. Ordinary sensations from his own body. He had a sense of his mind being back where it belonged.

_Thank you. Thank you so much._

Who the thoughts were aimed at, he didn’t know; didn’t care. He opened his eyes. The room was still dark, though a little sunlight filtered in from underneath the heavy curtains drawn across the window. His chip – were his brain functions really coherent enough to be able to use it? Apparently so – said it was past nine a.m. He’d been lying naked on his bedroom floor for who knew how long, and he felt like he hadn’t slept a wink.

As he lifted himself into a sitting position, a wave of nausea and dizziness swept through him, and the room tilted again. He gave a small cry, terror shooting through him as he remembered that this was how it had started last night. His vision went dark for a moment, and his limbs felt numb.

 _Makkachin. Makkachin and…the teacher._ Yes, that word seemed to fit. Two perfect anchors. He thought about them both, concentrated on his breathing…and the strangeness subsided. Though it didn’t seem to be entirely gone. He had the feeling that if he opened the wardrobe doors, a tiger might spring out at him. Or maybe aliens really would come to abduct him. Not because he was afraid it was going to happen, but because he was still imbued with a sense of unreality. Instead of the coffee mug tipping over and spilling all of its contents out, it was just dribbling a little bit over its sides. But even a little bit was too much, and who knew if or when it would get worse again?

He moaned, put a hand on his bed to steady himself, and slowly got to his feet, reeling at the utterly bizarre nature of the night he’d had. A knock-you-out wet dream followed by…god knew what. How was he supposed to deal with this? As if he didn’t have problems already, worrying about Yuuri, how sick he might be, where he was.

_That’s two of us who are sick now._

But was he? Was this what psychosis was like?

Jesus. He never thought he might end up experiencing it himself firsthand.

He called Harvard over his chip and told them he wouldn’t be coming in today. He didn’t add that he thought he might be losing his mind and was afraid to leave the apartment in case he had another episode, or saw a door handle come to life and start talking to him, or believed the Easter Bunny had arrived to visit him. His brain was trying to make light of it; the same organ that he’d studied intensively all those years, and was now betraying him at the same time. He said he might have to miss a few more days; he would have to see.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee permeated the apartment as he sat on the sofa with a steaming mug and sipped at it. He felt slightly more human after showering, getting dressed in jeans and a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and fighting down the nausea enough to have some scrambled eggs.

Every time he thought about what had happened to him, though, he was shaken by a new tremor of fear. He didn’t want to be here alone. But he couldn’t go to work. What _should_ he do?

_Am I really psychotic? Perhaps there’s a genetic component, and what happened to Anna is happening to me._

Another cold stab of fear.

_I could have the same operation I perform for others done to me, and get a blocking chip inserted._

That was a comforting possibility; the same one he’d offered to Yuuri. It was almost invariably successful.

But if that were the case…well, he was a scientist too. And here was an opportunity to study what it was like for his patients to have these kinds of experiences. If… _if_ he could find the courage to do so. There was no immediate hurry to have the operation, was there?

He was particularly intrigued by the person he thought he’d met, the one he’d decided to think of as the teacher. Real or not, the connection they’d had, though brief, had felt _good._ Like being able to bypass all the superficial information you received about somebody when you met them, including whatever front or persona they might try to put on for you, and…

_And see into their soul._

Wow. The very idea of that, balanced against the terror of slipping into unreality…it was a difficult decision.

In the end, however, curiosity won out. For the moment, at least.

He would go about this the best way he knew how: by approaching it scientifically. He got a tablet out and recorded all the details he could remember of the night before, starting with the feeling that the world was tilting. It was painful to have to think about it again, but reassuring in a way as well. He was now collecting raw data to be analyzed, and that was something he was used to doing.

It was easy to start to believe that he was in control now. Until he was standing in the kitchen and was struck by a new wave of dizziness. He tried to grab hold of the counter as his knees buckled, but he missed and slumped to the floor. There was the feeling again that he had somehow been disconnected from his body and everything he was normally able to sense through it. He thought if he tried hard enough, he might be able to reach a hand through the kitchen floor. He knew there was nothing below but foundations and soil – and his mind took him through it, through layers and layers of rock, hotter and hotter…shooting through impossibly pressurized depths, full of secrets no human had so far had the ability to probe, right to the earth’s core…

Stunned, he willed himself to pull back, and was suddenly – momentarily – in his kitchen again, before his consciousness continued to sail up and into the sky, into the black vastness of space lit by billions of pinpricks of light. He got the feeling that he could travel and see marvels if he wanted to. Or…he could be imagining it all. He just wanted to be Victor Nikiforov, in his own body, his own apartment. Adrift and floating in the void, as he felt the panic welling up in him again, he thought of Makkachin and the teacher. Held on to them firmly. And gradually, to his surprise, there was feeling in his body again. Like it was stirring with life and pulling his wandering…mind? Soul? Back where it belonged. Like a kite that had flown too high in the wind.

He pressed his fingers to the cool tiles underneath him, wondering if he had the strength to stand up. But when he tried, the dizziness assailed him. He slumped back down, resting his fevered cheek on the floor…

…and consulted his chip, which said it was noon. Shit, he’d been lying here for how long – an hour or more? Asleep, unconscious, who knew? He couldn’t continue to function like this. Tears dripped onto the floor as he lay still, wondering what was left of his life now this had happened.

_I’ve got to try to find the teacher. I need their help._

He had no idea how. Or if he’d be able to contact anybody else that way, for that matter. Slowly and gently, he wrapped his fingers around the counter and stood, his head swimming, and made his way over to the sofa, where he could at least be comfortable. There he lay down and tried to open himself – however that was done, he could only guess – to communicating. The teacher had just suddenly appeared the night before; he wasn’t sure how that worked. It clearly required more than simply thinking about them. Feeling ridiculous, he sent mind out, asking if anyone was there. Searching. After ten minutes or so of being unsuccessful at this, he focused on his desire to communicate with the teacher. Tried to summon the essence of the person he’d felt the night before.

When he located them, it felt like fitting a key into a lock, and Victor sighed audibly in relief. Maybe they’d formed some kind of bond between them which enabled this to happen. If he could, he would bask in this person’s…aura, or whatever you wanted to call it, all day. It was like putting your feet up in front of a blazing fire while it was snowing outside. At the same time, though, he was constantly aware that this might be some elaborate hallucination. Was he even ready to consider that instead of being psychotic, he had some weird new power of perception…or was that just a delusion brought on by a sick mind?

If it was possible, they were _arguing._ Victor insisting he couldn’t cope with this. That he was afraid it wasn’t real. He realized he was beginning to take his fear and frustration out on the one person in the world who was willing to give their own time and expertise to help him, even though they didn’t even know him. _If they actually exist,_ he couldn’t help but add, and his head started aching again.   

But then the teacher came up with a wonderful idea. They would help him learn a song that he could look up on his chip. One he’d likely never heard before. If he discovered it was real…well, he was certainly willing to give it a try. Strange how you couldn’t seem to communicate factual information very easily this way, like the words to a song, or what someone looked like. But the melody came across, and it was simple and hauntingly beautiful, he thought. Eventually he could hum it with confidence. And when they broke their link this time, Victor also had the reassurance of knowing how to find the teacher again, and that they didn’t seem to have any regrets about having reached out to him like this.

A chill ran through him when he hummed the tune into his chip and was informed that the song was called “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” As if he’d perfectly caught the essence of the song through the teacher, to the point where he’d guessed at part of the title without being aware of it.

_Is it psychosis, or extra-sensory perception?_

He’d never heard the song before. It was over 80 years old. The lyrics, when he looked them up, felt like a message, from the teacher to him; and this time when the tears sprang to his eyes, they were of an entirely different nature than before.

 _Now if you feel that you can’t go on_  
_Because all of your hope is gone,_  
_And your life is filled with much confusion_  
_Until happiness is just an illusion,_  
_And your world around is crumblin’ down;_  
_Darling, reach out_  
_Reach out_  
_I'll be there, with a love that will shelter you._  
_I'll be there, with a love that will see you through._

A love born of simple kindness, Victor thought, to someone they’d never met.

Though he did know one man who had told him he did this kind of thing with people who had recently developed ESP abilities. How common an occurrence was that? Could it be…? He considered for a moment, his heart fluttering. But the person Victor was in contact with could be any age or gender, anywhere in the world. That meant there were billions of possibilities.

He wished he could learn something about them. Locate them and thank them. He did what he could later that day by contacting them again and letting them know he’d identified the song.

And realized he now believed that this person was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it the first time, in Chapter 33, here you go! – [“Reach Out I’ll be There”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo) by the Four Tops


	38. Chapter 38

Victor didn’t go to work the rest of the week, and he didn’t go to New York over the weekend. The very thought of taking a plane, and then performing a delicate operation, while he was still prone to these weird…symptoms, or whatever you wanted to call them…well, it was better, and certainly more responsible, to face the boredom and fear of staying in his apartment by himself. Though he did successfully venture out a few times for short jogs, and was relieved that he didn’t collapse on the sidewalk.

The symptoms themselves, at least the purely physical ones – the dizziness, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, blackouts – mercifully seemed to be slowly easing. Even the dissociative feelings, that he’d been displaced from his body, were no longer so strong when they occurred, and that was perhaps the greatest relief of all. If some kind of physical law that he did not understand could be applied to the set of experiences, Victor wondered if it dictated that the symptoms had something to do with his system adjusting to this new…awakening, way of being, whatever you wanted to call it. It reminded him of vampire novels he’d read when he was a teenager. When someone was turned into one, they went through a change too, a sickness, until they got used to the new normal.

And drank some blood. _Jesus._ All right, it was pure fiction. But Victor was no longer completely sure where reality ended and fantasy began, and the very thought of such a thing brought the nausea and dizziness back. Who knew what the fuck had happened to him, or how he was supposed to deal with it.

He continued to take meticulous research notes, though these mostly consisted of descriptions of how he felt and when, and what his exchanges with the teacher were like. They continued to send him an understanding of how to tone the symptoms down, or even stop them completely, which he improved upon each time he tried. Panic made them worse. Remaining calm and mentally holding on to his anchors helped more than anything else. The teacher advised him that if he voluntarily opened himself to the experiences once in a while, the _in_ voluntary ones would occur less frequently. It was a disconcerting thought; but then he’d already done a little of that, when he searched for other people to communicate with in this way. Still with no success, though there seemed to be no harm in trying.

The teacher didn’t seem to mind Victor contacting them daily, sometimes more than once. He didn’t want to abuse the privilege he’d been given, and become enough of an annoyance that they ceased to acknowledge him. They seemed to be a lovely, understanding, giving person; but of course everyone had their limits. The courage and reassurance he derived from their communication made him wonder what he would have done if they had never appeared, and he’d been left to try to cope on his own. Maybe he really would be institutionalized by now…like Anna had been. The thought sent another tremor of fear through him.

Was this ability – he would call it ESP from now on; he would _have_ to, because he did not think he was sick – useful for anything other than contacting the teacher, and going on what might be best described as vivid acid trips? Not that he knew from experience what those were like; he’d seen enough patients with psychosis in his life to never want to venture into that world himself – not willingly, at least. When he’d asked Yuuri if he could affect the physical world with it, he’d answered in the negative. And Yuuri had presumably been dealing with this for many more years than himself, applying his intelligence and creativity to whatever he tried. Still…what if it was different for everybody, like talents in the ordinary physical world? Some people were artists, or musicians. Others were doctors or teachers. Some were good at sports. Could ESP be like that too? Yuuri was in contact with other presences, helping them. And as for himself…

Maybe that remained to be discovered. And suddenly the inquiring scientist within him sat up, alert and intrigued.

Though as the days passed, he felt disappointed and frustrated that he wasn’t able to achieve more. This wasn’t like the superhero stories, where some accident bestowed amazing powers. He was not exactly going to leap into the air and fly, or run at super speed. He couldn’t even move an object with the power of his mind, no matter how small it was or how short the distance. Knowledge of the future did not strike him dramatically down. He would not be buying the week’s winning lottery ticket; not that he needed it anyway. _But_ , not all hope was lost. As the symptoms continued to ease and he gradually seemed to be gaining more control over them, to the point where he decided he could risk going back to work – which turned out to be safe enough to do, it seemed – he decided the results of his experimentations weren’t one hundred percent negative. That sense he’d had the first day, like he could put his hand through the kitchen floor…well, he couldn’t. But it was leading things in an interesting direction.

He also chalked up a palpable success when he was able to teach a song back to the teacher. He’d danced ballet to it when he was young; and ever since, when he listened, it got under his skin and made him want to glide and twirl. The teacher seemed to like the song too, though their response to it was…complex. There was a happy enjoyment and appreciation – for which Victor was thankful, since for all he knew, the teacher only listened to bands like the Nihilistic Bunnies or Horcrux; though somehow he doubted it – but there was always a bassline of melancholy underneath. Like autumn itself. The abundance it brought, along with the beautiful warm colors of the landscape, and an end to the hot heady weather in this place, was always mixed with the knowledge that inevitably there would be dark, cold, bleak days to come, long before the thaw set in. He wondered sometimes what had caused that sadness in the teacher. Though the experience of the ESP, developing it and using it in a society that did not acknowledge its existence, might be enough of an explanation in itself.    

His mind was now clear enough that he could engage in research at Harvard; and he continued to visit MIT occasionally, even if it was just because he wasn’t ready to admit to himself that Yuuri wasn’t going to be around to complete the study with him. At times, he ended up with Phichit, talking in the office or at his work station in the engineering building, usually about Yuuri, though there was never anything new to share. Phichit would always promise to let Victor know if he heard anything; and those would be their final words until their paths crossed again.

He stopped going to bars and clubs on his own, and drinking had lost its appeal. Evenings were spent, when not catching up with his work, on experimenting with the ESP, and going on long jogs while giving himself time to reflect on and try to integrate this phenomenon into his life. However uncomfortable it could make him, he knew it was genuine, and that he was not psychotic. He was not paranoid or hallucinating. He was Victor Nikiforov, undergoing an experience. One that was often frightening – though he knew such feelings could often be traced to a lack of understanding, like humans at the dawn of time struggling to make sense of natural phenomena such as eclipses. But it could be sublime, too. He wondered how many people he’d been as close to in ordinary life as he felt to the teacher. And yet they knew so little about each other. If he ever met them – whether they were a ninety-year-old great-grandmother in France or a twenty-five-year-old Malaysian farmer – the first thing he would do was hug them and thank them.

But accepting the reality of the situation brought with it some important connotations – ones that had been lurking at the back of his mind, which were demanding to be dragged into the light of day. For example, at first he’d considered a shared genetic heritage with Anna that meant they were both susceptible to psychosis. But…what if it meant, instead, that they had both developed ESP? Everything they’d been through together would have to be reevaluated. The thought of such a colossal misunderstanding of the nature of her troubles brought tears to his eyes…and yes, it looked like that might really be the case. Or at least a strong possibility.

No less important was Yuuri, who was never far from his mind, and who he’d also assumed was sick. If he wasn’t…well at least it removed the terrible worry that he was stuck in the middle of a never-ending nightmare, unable to take care of himself. That was comfort of a kind. At the same time, however, he was unaware of what had been happening to Victor. That he was joining a new part of Yuuri’s world, and was coming to understand it in ways that would never have been possible before. Victor ached to tell him. He _had_ to find him. He tried hard, over and over, to seek him out via ESP; but those attempts met with no more success than the previous ones where he’d tried to contact anybody other than the teacher. No matter how desperate he began to feel about _making_ it happen, _forcing_ it to, he had to admit he simply didn’t know what he was doing.

The more Victor thought these things over – beginning to add them to his research notes, as a way of organizing it all – the more the disconcerting possibilities revealed themselves. Sometimes, if he was out for a jog, he would find a park, sit down on a bench, and put his head in his hands. Was there any part of his life, past or present, that he could be sure about anymore?

How many people had come to the Coughlin Institute, seeking and receiving an operation, who had been like himself and Yuuri – troubled not by psychosis, but symptoms of this…ESP? _How many?_ Surely not all; and the symptoms varied from person to person. But if had been even _some_ …?

Should he tell Zhenya? The operation was reversible, after all. Unlike the procedure for the Cloud chip, inserting and removing it were complex and delicate procedures, for it had to be integrated just so into the correct part of the brain, which could sometimes vary depending on the symptoms – they were still researching the optimal ways. But it could be done.

But Zhenya was a psychiatrist. Victor suspected he would not be open to unsubstantiated claims of ESP; to him they would sound like delusions that had been described to him by countless patients. And…there were Yuuri’s concerns about the organization. Victor had never considered the possibility that they were anything other than paranoia. But if those presences he said he’d been in contact with were real, and they’d sent him the Orphic egg symbol via ESP? Why were they so frightened of it? Yuuri was frightened because _they_ were, not because of any direct experience of his own. But Victor was one of the founders of the Institute. It had taken a great deal of time, energy, dedication, and research. And he’d known Zhenya for years. There had to have been some misunderstanding.

Again, the desperate need to find Yuuri and talk to him. If only they’d been able to speak properly before he had disappeared…But then Victor had to admit to himself, with a stab of shame, that he wouldn’t have been open to what Yuuri would likely have tried to tell him. And he ought to have been. He thought back to the conversation about skepticism in science they’d had months ago. What had Yuuri said…? Something along the lines of, _There are a lot of scientists who ought to quit their jobs, because they aren’t skeptics in the true sense of the word. They don’t have open minds._

Victor decided that if he’d heeded those words, maybe it would have headed off a lot of trouble.

He _had_ to find him.

***

It had been two months. No news of Yuuri. When Victor asked at the Institute, they said they were still looking for him. He did not attempt to tell them that Yuuri was not sick, since their help in the search might prove invaluable; though he again fervently reminded Zhenya that they were to notify him instantly if Yuuri was found. He could decline the operation if he wanted. Or…his stomach lurched at the idea, but maybe they could both still have it done, if they wanted to live normal lives. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It obviously worked, even if the etiology of the “symptoms” was ESP rather than psychosis. Though it would mean deliberately removing the potential for a rich area of research that few, if any, scientists would concede even existed. As well as…interesting relationships, like the one he had with the teacher. They would have to discuss it.

He wracked his brains to come up with new ideas for where Yuuri might be. In desperation, might he have gone to his family after all? But without a chip, how would he have gotten to England?

_Think, Victor, think. He had his chip removed. Why? So no one would be able to track him. And it’s common knowledge that surveillance of some kind goes on with it, though no one seems to know how much or what kind. I’ve seen enough, at least in Russia, to be aware that it’s possible to listen in on conversations – and if it happens there, it surely happens here. Yuuri would know that, too. He said as much. Which means he would be wary of giving information to anyone who’s chipped. No doubt his family is, so he wouldn’t go there – not that it was ever likely anyway._

_I’m chipped, too. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t tried to contact me. Apart from the fact that he accused me of being an agent and killing people._

It didn’t stop him sending video messages, especially since he took heart that maybe they were being viewed even though Yuuri wasn’t responding. But he didn’t say anything about chips or surveillance, in case invisible ears really were listening, and because he didn’t want to cause Yuuri more agitation than he was no doubt already dealing with. Victor once again fought down the need, so strong it pulled at every muscle in his body, to wrap his arms tight around his love and tell him everything would be OK; that they’d find a way to deal with it all, together.

***

“You sure this is what you want to do, Victor? It’s probably gonna be pretty nasty.”

“Of course it is. I asked, didn’t I?”

He and Phichit were standing outside the door to Yuuri’s apartment, the landlady having agreed to let them in, considering how long Yuuri had been missing. Nursing his hopes that he would be found or return of his own accord, Victor had looked into whether his bills were being paid, and discovered they weren’t, because there wasn’t enough money in his account. People weren’t so insistent on confidentiality when someone was volunteering to pay someone else’s arrears, which was what Victor had done for the past couple of months. But there was no telling when, or if – no, he didn’t want to consider that, not yet – Yuuri would be back; so after talking with Phichit, they’d agreed the most prudent thing to do would be to have a company remove Yuuri’s possessions from the apartment and place them in storage. Before that happened, however, they’d arrived to clear out the cupboards and refrigerator, and take advantage of the one and only time they’d been allowed inside to hunt around and see if Yuuri had left any clues behind as to where he’d gone.

“Two-month-old meat and milk and stuff? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Phichit said as they stepped inside. When Victor didn’t answer, he craned his head back to look. “Oh…sorry. I, um, know this is probably hard for you – ”

“It’s OK,” Victor said in a clipped tone, approaching the refrigerator and taking a roll of cornstarch trash bags out of his blue canvas carrier.

Phichit had been right; it wasn’t a pleasant experience. But it was soon over. There was nothing in the fridge worth keeping, apart from a few containers; not with Yuuri’s penchant for healthy food free of preservatives and e-numbers. They quickly had the Friday open a window to let the foul smells out of the room, and then had a look around.

The place was as spartan as ever. Most information and entertainment was computerized, and Yuuri wasn’t fond of pictures of himself. He didn’t leave handwritten notes or doodles. Any information about places he’d been considering as destinations would not likely be found in physical form here. Though Victor noticed a little black oval on the coffee table in the living room, which had an attachment that looked like it was meant to hook around the ear. He picked it up and put it in a pocket, wondering if this was the brainwave-entrainment device Yuuri had told him about. If it was, he couldn’t understand why Yuuri hadn’t taken it with him, but then realized it probably worked through the chip, especially if it had been based on the specs he himself had created. Well, he would have time to check it out later.

He left Phichit wandering around in the kitchen, peeking into cupboards, and ventured into the bedroom, feeling vaguely like he was intruding and offering a silent apology. He hadn’t been in here yet, despite having fantasized about it more times than he could count. The first thing he noticed was Yuuri’s leather carryall on the floor. He went just about everywhere with this. Though maybe…yes, he’d probably thought a backpack would be easier, especially if he anticipated having to run. Victor’s heart sank. He knelt on the carpeted floor and looked through the bag, but it was empty, a sad abandoned old shell.

He stood back up and took glimpses into the drawers of Yuuri’s nightstand and inside a desk, but there were still no clues to be found. Not even much that hinted at the person who lived here. Pens, pencils, a notepad with a couple of equations on the top page and a list of meetings scheduled for an unknown date, a few toiletries. An ancient-looking tube of eyeliner and one of a neutral pink-ish shade of lipstick, rolling around at the back of a drawer.

 _Really?_ Victor couldn’t help but think with a sly grin, despite the feelings churning inside of him. _Oh yes please._

He saw no point in going through Yuuri’s dresser drawers or any more of his personal things, which felt invasive; but he had a glimpse in the closet. Yuuri had apparently left all of his work clothes and shoes. Well, that made sense, he supposed. There was a Red Sox jacket on a hanger that looked old, and must be several sizes too big, at least for Yuuri as he was now. There were badges pinned to it with slogans like “Go Sox” and pictures of players, a couple of them rusting; and on the back, to Victor’s surprise, underneath a stitched leather baseball design were a couple of black felt-tip signatures. Clearly something well-loved that Yuuri had not wanted to part with. Victor wanted to ask him about it. _Would_ ask him about it, sometime. Because he _was_ going to see Yuuri again.

His throat hitched when he saw the clothes he’d bought Yuuri for their night at Qi, the leather pants neatly folded on a hanger and the shirt with its gold dragon faintly shimmering in the dark. Unable to help himself, he leaned forward and held the shirt against his face; but of course Yuuri had washed it all before he’d put it away, and the only scent to be discerned was rose detergent. That in itself was familiar, but…

He took the clothes off the hanger and sat down on the bed with them, folding them on his lap. A tear leaked down his face. All those nights Yuuri had slept here. If only he could reach through time and contact him on one of them…tell him that he mustn’t run away; plead with him, despite whatever happened, whatever ended up haunting him, to trust the man who loved him and would take care of him.

He slumped down and lay his head on the pillow, breathing in Yuuri’s natural scent at last, placing a hand on the soft fabric as if it were a cheek he could touch and stroke.

 _Come back to me, Yuuri._ He closed his eyes and wept silently. _Please, please come back to me, baby._    

***

Victor grudgingly decided to shut down the study he and Yuuri had begun together, then sent a video message informing him, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t such a bad thing, and they could revive it at any time in the future. And that was true enough. But it _was_ a bad thing in the sense that it was what had brought them together, the enthusiasm they each felt for their work feeding into a partnership that had become so much more.

 _We_ will _finish it, one day. Even if we have to start over by then. I swear it._

There was no longer any reason to continue visiting MIT, so he spent more time at Harvard, and they seemed pleased about it. Though he still hadn’t finalized anything with them, either. Returning to Columbia full-time was a possibility, especially since he would be able from there to keep a closer eye on the Institute and hopefully be in a position to decide for himself whether he liked the direction it was headed in. But leaving Cambridge felt too much like admitting that Yuuri was no longer part of his life…and he wasn’t ready to face that.

The teacher felt like the only comfort he had. He hoped he’d be able to show them some things he’d learned how to do with the ESP soon, just like they’d shown him how to disable electronic equipment. Victor had visited a secondhand electronics store and bought some old components, and spent a couple of evenings having fun making sparks fly, though he couldn’t see many practical applications in his own life. He could tell it had been of vital importance to the teacher, however, and wondered what kind of life they led for that to be so. Were they menaced by AI in some way?

Thinking of the person as “the teacher” no longer seemed to fit, either. It felt more as if they had become friends. He got the idea that while they were more experienced with ESP, they perhaps hadn’t discovered a great many practical uses for it either. But Victor felt drawn, more than ever, to their bright warmth, and that mattered far more than anything the person was able to teach him. And so he thought of them with a new name: Zvezda, Russian for “star.”

As they continued their contact daily, however, Victor found himself fighting the same doubts and worries that often seemed to surface when he got close to someone. That if they left, the pain he experienced would be proportional to how much he cared for them. And hadn’t Yuuri proved that yet again? What guarantee was there that Zvezda wouldn’t vanish as suddenly as they had appeared, perhaps believing their work with him was done? When he thought about it, he himself was the one to always instigate their communications, though there was no way of knowing if it was deliberate on their part or if it was something they were simply incapable of doing. He often wondered if they felt exhausted by him, or thought him needy; he didn’t think so himself, but people’s perceptions of these things could be vastly different. But it _felt_ as if they liked it when he said hello, at least.

Then it struck him that maybe if he could find Zvezda, they might be able to help him find Yuuri. Maybe they could even look together. It was difficult to get an idea of everything they were capable of, everything they knew, from the vague link they shared. In physical reality, perhaps it would be clearer. He’d tried without success to find Yuuri, but Yuuri didn’t want to be found. There was no obvious reason why Zvezda should feel the same. 

He tried over the next several days, when he wasn’t working, to get the idea across. It didn’t seem possible to send something specific like “I’m in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working at Harvard. Where are you?” Though one evening, when there was an unusually flamboyant sunset and he was jogging near the river, he decided to try sending an image of that, along with a wish that Zvezda could be there to enjoy it with him. He wasn’t sure how successful he’d been, but he received a reaction from them at least; something that, if it could be put into words, would be very like _It’s lovely._ Feeling his heart leap, he told them it was their turn. But they didn’t seem to be sending anything visual. Instead…it took him some moments to work it out, but he thought it was _smells_ , of all things. Filtering into his mind like intense memories. He felt certain they were curry spices, though he didn’t know enough about them to be able to say what each was. A bit of fun for Zvezda. And himself, of course. But he was still no closer to finding out where they were.

When he got back to his apartment, an idea suddenly struck him, and he sat on his sofa, removed the brainwave-entrainment device from his canvas bag – for he felt sure that was what it was – and took a long look at it. Of course there was little to be gleaned without taking it apart. But if it worked the way it should…He hooked it over his ear, lay down, fought off the fear for a moment that he might be inviting the worst of the symptoms back by doing this, closed his eyes and tried to be calm. Yes, it was controlled by his chip. He could choose which brainwave frequency to aim for.

Oh…how could he have been so remiss? Here he was, a fucking _neuroscientist_ , and it hadn’t occurred to him to monitor his brain while he was engaging in ESP. He had no idea what kind of frequency he needed. Well, a safe guess would be alpha or theta. Maybe something on the borderline between the two, then? Yuuri would know this, of course. Had probably been studying it for years, a well-guarded secret from a world that would not have wanted to listen.

He could feel the tension bleeding away from him, his mind calming, the hectic rush of thoughts slowing to a trickle. This was…this was _gorgeous._ Like receiving the world’s best massage.

Instead of opening his mind to Zvezda again, or to more strange journeys to weird far-flung places that couldn’t be completely real, he went deep into his memories, searching for clues. Anything Zvezda had led him to understand, or shown him, that might hint at where they were. Even a specific country would narrow things considerably.

He tapped into a mix of vague, hazy images and impressions. It seemed that Zvezda spent a lot of time outdoors. Someplace warm and sunny. Dry, but not a desert. There, that was a start. He kept prodding. Sequoia-red soil. Trees and scrub. Hills. And…wait. On top of a high hill, something large and white. Beautifully, pristinely white and round. The sky behind it was suddenly dark, with star trails streaking in circles, like the kind you saw on posters. Concrete stairs spilled from an entrance, onto a winding road.

An observatory! It had to be. But where? There were so many of them, and they commonly looked like this. They also tended to be on hills. He sent his mind probing again, unsure how much information was coming from memory and how much he was perhaps gaining from elsewhere – though where, if not Zvezda themselves, he could not begin to guess. He thought of a honeycomb. Hexagon locked into hexagon, forming a huge compound circle, with a dark hole in the middle. Like something inspired by the eye of an insect. Was it the mirror, perhaps? Victor knew little about these things.

He brought himself gradually out of his light trance, turned off the device, and replaced it in his bag. Then he sat back on the sofa and accessed his chip. As he thought, many observatories seemed to fit what he’d seen. And images received via ESP were not exactly focused; they resembled dreams more than anything else. Yet this was probably the clearest one he’d experienced so far. The mirror helped, too. It was only the largest, most modern observatories that had them, he saw; though the trend today was toward telescopes in space, on the moon, and synching the data from smaller individual telescopes across the world. Still…maybe this was enough to go on.

He carefully researched each observatory he could find that seemed to meet the criteria. There was one in Spain, though the geometric design on the dome didn’t quite seem to fit. One in Hawaii – but the terrain there looked too bleak. One in California…maybe. Yes, maybe that was the one. And it had a mirror of the size and type he’d seen. Mount Palomar, it said. In the southwest of the country.

Did it mean anything significant, though? What if it was a photo on Zvezda’s wall? Or a memory? Maybe they’d visited it once.

_When they were on a vacation, a long time ago. As a child. And they decided they wanted to be an astrophysicist._

Victor’s eyes shot open wide, and he gasped. Yuuri worked with newly awakened presences. He also liked to cook. With Indian spices. Was it enough to rule out coincidence?  He took some time to explore the idea of what it might be like if they were in contact with each other via ESP. Yes, maybe it would feel like this. Maybe. It would be lovely if it did.

_Yuuri…is that you? Are you out there?_

He was going to go and see.


	39. Chapter 39

It wouldn’t take long to get to California. Harvard wouldn’t be pleased about him taking more time off, but he was already putting more hours in than he’d intended, having planned to be partially based at MIT. And, well…having a good reputation and a high profile had its advantages. They would not want to do anything to risk losing him. He bought a plane ticket for departure in two days.   

Then it struck him that it might be a good idea to have his chip removed temporarily while he traveled. Whoever he met – Zvezda or Yuuri, or possibly, hopefully, one and the same – might be distrustful of it, especially since there seemed to be a fear out there of the Orphic egg symbol; though how pervasive it was, Victor had no idea. He thought it wouldn’t hurt, either, to make sure that none of his conversations were overheard. From what he understood, it was more common for people to be unchipped in California than it was here, and businesses and services were more accessible via old-fashioned means such as cash. If Yuuri really had gone there, Victor could believe that was one of the things that might have attracted him. He would make sure he had plenty of cash on him, then, in California dollars; but he would wait to visit a tech shop until the day he flew out, not wishing to bring unnecessary complications into his life until there was no avoiding it. He didn’t think he’d ever known someone without a chip, let alone how it was possible to live that way. Simple things like telling the time could suddenly be problematic.

He found a Cloud page that sold antique wristwatches, picked a burnished gold-colored one that he thought looked simple yet elegant, and arranged to have it delivered by drone the next day. Then he transferred important files and applications from his chip to a tablet, though its memory was miniscule compared to the Cloud. It already contained research notes, contact numbers, and photos. Then he realized he would likely be hiking up Palomar Mountain, and got his red backpack out, cramming into it everything he wanted to take.

The ESP had not been cooperating, even when he tried to use the brainwave-entrainment device; and he struggled to sleep as well. Ironically, at the same time, the familiar frightening symptoms were creeping back; he felt slightly dizzy and nauseous, and his sight and hearing faded in and out a few times. He went back to thinking about his two anchors, and breathed slow and deep to try to calm himself. No doubt it was all due to his excitement about the trip, the frantic ruminations about what to expect, the nervous flutter he got when he wondered if Zvezda really was Yuuri. Though if that wasn’t the case, it would still be wonderful to find Zvezda, and maybe they could help him. If he could survive a few days without a chip, that was. He’d never tried, not since it was first installed when he was a child.

On the day of his flight, he had his chip removed, picked up his backpack – he’d never traveled so lightly or frugally before – and took a pre-booked taxi to the airport. It was near Yuuri’s Eagle Hill apartment, or what used to be, and it always tugged at his heartstrings when he passed through. _I’m coming to find you, Yuuri. I…just hope that’s what you want. And that I can. We’ll work this out, somehow. And Zvezda…who are you?_

He began to encounter problems due to not having a chip almost as soon as he entered the airport, when he tried to check in at the desk for his flight and the computer there refused to do it for him without an uplink. Presumably you simply were not expected to be traveling by plane if you were unchipped. After some searching, he managed to find a human attendant who gave him some strange looks and eventually took him down a long series of corridors to a small office where he printed manual tickets, after looking at Victor’s paper passport; he at least had one of those, having traveled to countries where chips were less ubiquitous. The attendant said he would send data to the airport mainframe that would allow him to pass through the gate and onto the plane, though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to print tickets out and wasn’t sure it was even still possible to use them to pass the security barriers. Unfortunately he didn’t have time to escort Victor himself, but he wished him luck. And a nice flight.

Fortunately things went smoothly after that, until he boarded the plane and wondered why he hadn’t thought to at least bring a book to read; not that the idea had readily presented itself, as people who bought them tended to be the same type who also wanted to own record players or radios, and frequented antique shops. He had a window seat, though, and contentedly watched the clouds and the landscape pass by below.

They landed in San Diego just after five p.m. local time, and as his body thought it was three hours later and complaining it was hungry, he tried to buy something to eat at one of the cafés in the airport – only to discover that they were all automated and designed to handle payments via chip. Then when he ventured outside, there seemed to be no manual facility for booking a taxi, and he searched for what felt like ages before he found a dingy little side street at another terminal where some were parked and idly waiting for passengers. He could have fainted with relief when he discovered that the vehicle he entered was voice-operated and said there were slots in the front where he could pre-pay once he gave his destination. He’d encountered these in other countries, including a few areas of Russia, but never in the U.S.

A small town to the north of the Palomar Mountains called Aguanga was the destination he’d chosen before he’d had his chip removed; he announced this to the AI, was told how much the journey would cost, and inserted his cash into the slot. It was as warm here as a pleasant summer’s evening, and he asked for the window to be opened a little. The drive of just over an hour took him across countryside that looked as if it had been plucked from the visions he’d had of the Palomar area, though it was hard to get a good view because the sun was rapidly sinking below the horizon. The twilit land had a parched, baked look to it, with large hilly patches of scrub interspersed with occasional lakes and stands of trees. Very different from the Stanford area he knew; though even when he’d been there, he’d rarely ventured beyond the confines of the university.

Once in Aguanga, he checked into the motel that he’d booked and prepaid for over his chip, and was pleased to find a decent eatery serving simple but well-cooked meat and veg dishes, and which to his relief accepted cash. Afterward, he spent the evening examining maps. Several of them were printouts of the area that he’d made on his first visit to a Cloud café in Boston, that being the only place he could locate which still used such a device. For something both larger and more detailed, however, he’d sent away on his chip, next-day delivery by drone, for an old map of southern California that he’d bought from an auction Cloud page. It was twenty years out of date, but appeared to be usable when he compared it to his printouts.

He didn’t know if Zvezda actually had a job at the Palomar Observatory, or they lived out here somewhere…or they just thought about it sometimes. He wanted to be able to tell them he was here. But he quickly discovered he was still too excited to be able to focus enough for the ESP to be any use, and sat next to his open window for a while, breathing in the night air and staring at the stars until he was tired enough to be able to sleep.

The next morning he checked out of the motel bright and early, forced some food down himself at the same place he’d eaten the night before, and set out on the eight-kilometer hike up to the observatory. A brilliant yellow sun scintillated in an azure sky and a delightful warm breeze blew as he made his way on a dirt path past clumps of chaparral and sagebrush; at least, that was what he was seeing at a guess. It was tempting to imagine he was on vacation. But the constant butterflies in his stomach ensured that his purpose remained in the forefront of his mind.

The signs here, when they appeared at all, were old and weatherbeaten. And even though he knew it ought to be a matter of common sense to read a map, he ended up kneeling and spreading the unwieldy paper monstrosity across a bare patch of ground on several occasions, struggling to match where he’d been and where he was going to the zigzag lines across a blob of green. Did people really rely on these things before the chip? He’d perhaps allowed it to guide him by the nose too often. It gave you the illusion of mastery over your environment. Turning on the automatic translator, for example, meant you didn’t have to bother learning any language other than the one you grew up with; but take that away, and you might find yourself in a place where you couldn’t understand a word people were saying. Fortunately, Victor spoke good English, as he wanted to be able to communicate with people directly and not have to listen to a voice talk over the top of them – or read subtitles scrolling across the bottom of his visual field, especially when the degree of accuracy could be hit or miss where cultural complications like idioms were concerned.

Still, without his chip, he felt strangely isolated here in this bleakly beautiful place. Somehow he managed to stay roughly on course, however, because after about an hour and a half, his heart gave a leap when he suddenly caught sight of the great white edifice with its dome, peeking through the trees. He’d made sure before he came that this was one of the days it was open to the public. But…he couldn’t just wander in and ask if any of the staff, or the scientists who regularly visited, happened to have ESP. It struck him that he ought to have put more thought into what he was supposed to do when he got here.

Admission to the museum inside was free, and there were photos of staff members with names and brief job descriptions on the wall. Victor examined them carefully. Presumably any of them could be Zvezda. But he didn’t get a “feeling” about a single one. Though that didn’t necessarily mean anything, did it? Was he likely to get a “feeling” about somebody via ESP even when he was in a calm, receptive state?

Eventually deciding he would find no answers inside, he exited and sat on a bench, angry at himself for not knowing what to do next. He’d had his chip removed and flown all the way out here – for what? So he could sit here and bemoan how inconvenient it was that the person he was hoping to meet wasn’t waiting for him at the top of the steps when he arrived?      

No. But he did know he was unlikely to get far without being able to tease out more information via ESP. He thought he’d done all he could, but clearly it hadn’t been enough. He sat for a while, gazing across the admittedly gorgeous vista of mountains and valleys, feeling himself growing ever more frustrated. Finally he decided to wander far enough away from the observatory and the steady trickle of visitors to feel reasonably confident that he’d found a secluded place among the trees where he was unlikely to be disturbed. That would help him focus. He sat down on hard-packed russet earth covered in dirt and pine needles, breathing in and relishing their scents.

_I wonder…_

No. It was too far-fetched. Ridiculous.

But there was no harm in trying, was there?

He took out the large paper map he’d bought and spread it across the ground, anchoring the edges and corners with rocks.

No. It was silly. But…there was no one around to laugh and judge, apart from himself.

The idea that had sprung to mind was along the lines of Ouija boards and automatic writing. Though if you could classify paranormal phenomena, he supposed those would be listed under mediumship rather than ESP. And he had no intention of trying to contact the dead, or ghosts, or what have you. He thought it was reasonable to say, at least, that the physical actions were real; you could watch someone perform them, even if you couldn’t be certain what was causing them.

What if it was the mind, and not spirits at all? What if it _was_ some form of ESP? The unconscious communicating with the conscious, maybe? Could that be of any help to him here? He was going to try and see. He took some time to achieve as much calm as he could under the circumstances. Breathed deep and slow. Listened to the wind in the tree branches above. Then lifted a hand, pointed his index finger, leaned over, and with his eyes closed, touched it gently to the surface of the map, focusing intently on his desire to find the physical whereabouts of Zvezda. But his finger didn’t seem to want to stay where it had landed. Still with his eyes closed, he continued to concentrate and allowed it to drift where it felt compelled, first in one line, and then in a slightly different direction…until it moved no more.

Victor opened his eyes and looked at where his finger had stopped on the map. An empty area about a kilometer to the west of a town to the south of the Palomar Mountains called La Jolla Amago. It would be a ten-kilometer walk from here to there, give or take, depending on how the path meandered. Keeping his finger anchored to the spot, he reached into his backpack with his other hand and removed a pencil from a pocket, then drew an “X” there. Might that be where Zvezda lived? Or had something else appeared there in the twenty years since the map had been made? He got out one of the maps of the local area he’d printed at the Cloud café and compared it. Yes, there _was_ something there now, Victor saw with sudden excitement. It was labeled “Children of Gaia.” No explanation. So…what was that? Was it even the right place?

He experimented with moving the map around while he kept his eyes closed, so that he didn’t know which direction it was facing. Placing his finger at different random points and allowing it to glide across the paper as he had before. Again, all the while, thinking of Zvezda.

And _every single time_ …Children of Gaia. He knew he hadn’t been cheating. The odds of his finger landing in the same place…how many times in a row? It sent shivers down his spine. Somehow this simple act was doing more than anything else had to convince him that he really had developed some strange ability that went beyond anything so far understood by science. Here was proof, staring him in the face. He huffed a little laugh of amazement. _Wicked flink,_ as Yuuri would say.

His first destination, he decided as he folded the map back up – he never could get it as neat as it had been before he’d used it the first time, and no doubt there was some ancient origami trick involved that had since been forgotten – would be the town of La Jolla Amago. After a deep drink of water from his carton, he shouldered his backpack and set off, mostly succeeding in following the map’s guidance as he had before, though at least this time he could see the valley for which he was headed as he made his way down. He thought he could make out the town in front of him. To the west…clusters of buildings. It was difficult to work out from this distance what their purpose was, but they seemed to be dwellings. Though a large spread-out area of them had metal roofs that gleamed in the sun.   

Once in the town, he bought a sandwich for lunch and, to his surprise, spotted a Cloud café down a side street. They were rare in a big city like Boston, and he hadn’t expected to find one in a small town like this. But it was very welcome. He went inside, paid for a session, and did a search for “Children of Gaia.” It was as if the place didn’t exist, however, at least as far as the Cloud was concerned.

He got up and went to speak to the attendant at the desk, saying he wanted to visit Children of Gaia, and could she tell him anything about it?

The twentysomething woman, with long blond hair and blue eyes, gave him a lingering smile after staring at him. Sure, she said. People from there came into town all the time. They had some weird ideas, but most of them were nice enough. They seemed to live by a very anti-tech philosophy – an offline community where none of them were chipped, and they dressed like it was over a hundred years ago or something. But she was sure they were fine to speak to and do business with. Why did he want to go there, if he didn’t mind her asking?

Victor answered that he wanted to visit a friend, thanked her, and went back to the interface screen, not in the mood to linger for small talk. Once he found what he needed, he printed the most blown-up version of a satellite map of the area that he could, which showed individual buildings, and then left the café. As he walked down the sidewalk, once again consulting his large map, which he’d messily folded several times over itself, he thought about offline communities. He knew they existed, but as they were illegal in the U.S. and in Russia, he’d never had any dealings with them.

_If you don’t have a chip, though, maybe you’d think it was a safe place to hide. Especially if it’s not even mentioned on the Cloud._

He grinned as the town petered out behind him and he found himself walking along a flat path of honey-colored dirt surrounded by scrub, with a stream trickling nearby.   

He didn’t want to make assumptions. Didn’t want to feel disappointed if – _when –_ he met Zvezda and discovered they were anyone other than Yuuri. But…it was a tantalizing possibility.

In the short time it took to reach the outskirts of the settlement, his heart had begun to race. That was less than ideal, however, because he would need to consult the map he’d just printed, which would require calm and concentration. He had no desire to saunter into the middle of the place and announce his presence, or to knock randomly on doors, or find a main building where he could make inquiries. If he could discreetly pinpoint the specific building he needed to find, by himself, that would surely be best.

Tin shacks here – with people living in them, from the look of it. This was an offline community? It looked more like a refugee camp, though the shacks were spread apart and interspersed with trees. Before he got too near, Victor ducked under the shelter of a copse, sat down with his back against a trunk, got out the satellite map, and tried to clear his mind. It was a tall order, but he knew he had to try. When he felt he was ready, he ran his finger across it with his eyes closed, this time simply holding the piece of paper with his other hand. When it came to a stop, he looked at the map. A nondescript building on the edge of the community, to the south. He tried several more times with his finger to make sure, and each time it ended up on top of, or near, the same building. There was no mistaking the destination for another one nearby, because there was nothing else in the immediate vicinity but open land. He wondered if he’d know it when he saw it, as it was impossible to tell from the map what kind of building it was.

He stood again and, holding the map in front of him, circled around the settlement, not wishing to draw attention to himself. At one point when he crested a small hill, he could see a couple of people, a man and a woman, exiting a large dark brown wooden building at what seemed to be the heart of the place. As the attendant at the Cloud café had said, their clothes were rather unique, like they were ready for a reenactment of…pioneer days? He was no expert on American history, but that seemed to be the right time period. And there was no sign of any tech anywhere – no taxis or cars, no hovering aircams, no sounds of public broadcasts. What was it about this place that had led Zvezda to choose it? he wondered. It would be one of the first questions he asked them. If they were here. Which Victor now felt certain of, thanks to his serendipitous discovery of the map-reading.

His heart was in his throat when he spotted the building he was aiming for – a big red wooden barn with white trim, like the kind you saw in photos that were supposed to be iconic of rural America – or California; though the windmill water pump that was inevitably nearby was absent here. As he looked at it, he felt an odd sort of pull towards it, as if he were holding one end of a rope and someone were gently tugging at the other, trying to draw him forward. He’d never felt anything like it. Something told him it was connected with Zvezda in some way he didn’t understand. They were inside that barn. Now.

He replaced the map in his backpack, noticing his fingers shaking a little as he did so, and took a deep breath and swallowed. The he covered the rest of the distance to the barn, wondering what… _who_ …he would find inside.

The big double doors were wide open. He took a final few tentative steps, and then peered into the gloom; the windows were small and let in little light.

A straw-covered earthen floor. Bales of hay. A loft high above. Some kind of wooden cart parked inside. And…Zvezda. In those strange clothes people wore here – though they looked…sexy on him, Victor couldn’t help thinking, eyeing the suspenders, and the way the plain shirt gapped at his throat. _Yuuri._

He curled a hand around the wall of the doorway and gave him a warm grin. “Ah. So it _is_ you,” he said quietly.   


	40. Chapter 40

Yuuri continued to stare, his heart hammering, his mouth dry.

 _This_ was Velvet?

_How?_

When the hazy image of the sunset over Longfellow Bridge in Boston became clear in his mind, a surge of panic had swept through him. One of the people who had been hunting him down had found him. As ESP had been involved, maybe it was even Crow. He hadn’t had a chance to consider how plausible an idea that was before _Victor_ , of all people, had appeared in the doorway.

Yuuri was so, so glad to see him again.

Then all of his former doubts resurfaced, intensified by his sudden appearance.

Still with the soft smile, Victor dropped his hand from the doorway and slowly, quietly walked in, his black shoes shuffling over the straw. When he saw Yuuri flinch, he stopped a few meters away, blue eyes shining. He was wearing his red backpack. Yuuri hadn’t seen it since they’d hiked up Mt. Greylock together. It felt like a world away now.

“I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know. For certain. Until I saw you just now. All that time we were communicating…I had no idea it was you, Yuuri.” Victor’s voice had a tone of quiet awe. Yuuri wanted to let himself be lulled by it. But this was a situation that was potentially dangerous, and needed untangling.

“I didn’t know either, but…” He took a moment to look at Victor. Then closed his eyes and reached out to him with his consciousness. That background buzz of Victor’s presence was still there…and in his heart he _knew._ “Yes,” he said softly, opening his eyes. “It’s really you.” He couldn’t stop a corner of his mouth from turning up slightly. But then he gave himself a mental shake. If Victor had been…what, set up as some kind of honey trap, maybe, then he was gleefully jumping straight into it. “Did the Coughlin Institute put you up to this?” he demanded. “Victor, tell me this isn’t a trick.”

Confusion crossed Victor’s face. “What? No.” He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, just like he had the last time they’d spoken, and Yuuri was hit with a nauseating sense of déjà vu. “I know something about the Institute has been frightening you. I hope we can talk about that. But I came here, to California, looking for the person I’ve been in contact with through the ESP. I…I swear I didn’t know it was you, though I…hoped it was. I haven’t been sent by the Institute. They don’t even know I’m here.”

“They will, if they’ve been spying over your chip,” Yuuri said flatly, picking up his backpack as if to make a dash for the doors.

“I got my chip removed before I flew out here,” Victor said quickly. “I thought whoever I ended up meeting would want that; maybe it would make them feel safer. Look.” He held up a hand, and Yuuri suddenly noticed a bronze-gold wristwatch against his milky skin. “I have to use this to tell the time.”

Without thinking, Yuuri held up his own hand and pulled his loose shirtsleeve back to reveal a chrome circle with an old-fashioned white clockface fastened to his wrist by a brown leather strap. Victor smiled to see it. But a wristwatch was not proof of anything. Yuuri continued to regard him warily. “How did this suddenly happen?” he asked in the same sharp tone. “The ESP? You didn’t have that ability the last time I saw you. I would’ve known. Fuck, Victor, you didn’t even believe it _existed_. And…how on earth did you find me here?”

Victor sighed, his face falling. He slowly took a seat on a hay bale. Yuuri continued to stand, tempted for a moment to pull his stun gun from his pocket; he still habitually carried it everywhere he went, like his backpack. But he didn’t want this encounter to go the same way as the last one. It was already on the same trajectory. He continued to look at Victor silently, waiting for a response.

“The answer to the ESP,” Victor began in a voice just above a whisper, “is that it just suddenly…was there. I don’t know how, or why. And, um, you know what happened after that, because you helped me.”

His voice wavered on the last words, spoken tenderly. Yuuri saw pain in his eyes…and gratitude; and he felt his heart softening.

“I tried so hard to find you, Yuuri. So I could see you again, talk to you. I had no way of telling you what had happened to me. That wasn’t just something I could leave on a video message. But this new ability I have…it’s changed so many things for me. It forced me to realize you weren’t sick at all, for one thing.” He took a quick breath, and his eyes grew wide and pleading. “I’m so sorry for thinking you were. I feel terrible about that, and I…hope you can forgive me.”

Yuuri’s heart was positively melting now. But he kept a poker face, or as close to one as he could manage. He didn’t know what to think; needed time to take it all in. And yet there was still more, so much more that he had to know before he could make any kind of sensible decision about what to do.

“When there still wasn’t any word of you,” Victor continued, “I started to wonder if I’d be more likely to succeed if I looked for the person who was helping me with the ESP. I was hoping to meet them anyway, but I thought maybe they’d know a way I could find you. There’s no rule book for this stuff, is there?” Victor gave a sad little chuckle.

“No,” Yuuri said quietly. “But I’ve never been able to physically locate anyone else with ESP, so how – ”

“I saw a place you’ve been before – maybe you’ve been there again, since you got here? A white-domed building with star trails behind it. It was in your thoughts sometimes.”

“Palomar Observatory,” Yuuri breathed.

“That’s it. I did some research and thought that was probably what it was. And I remembered you saying something about visiting it once when you were on vacation with your family. It made you want to be an astrophysicist.” Another sad little smile. “Then there were the spices, and the cooking. Not to mention the fact that you told me you helped these presences, as you called them – people who had just developed ESP. It felt like it was adding up, you know? That it might be _you_ I was in contact with. I sent you that vision of the bridge over the river in Boston while I was out jogging, hoping you might send me similar information about where you were. Well, in the end, I decided just to go to the observatory and follow my nose from there, as they say. Or maybe my finger. I found out I could do something with maps that helped me a lot…I’ll have to show you sometime.” 

Yuuri thought he had mentioned the observatory to Victor once briefly, months back, and was touched that he remembered. Everything he’d said was plausible. But he wasn’t ready to let go of caution just yet. “Victor, I only worked out what that vision of the bridge was just before you walked in here. If I’d known before, I…I wouldn’t have contacted you again; I would’ve thought I was being set up somehow. I mean…” He shook his head. “…how can I be sure this is all the truth? I don’t even know where to begin with the possibilities, now that you’re suddenly here.”

There was a pause, then Victor said, “I didn’t come with a plan to prove anything I was saying. I guess I didn’t expect it to be necessary. I…don’t know how to convince you, Yuuri, other than to just ask you to trust me. You…you trusted me while we were doing the ESP together, didn’t you?”

 _Yes._ And he wanted more than anything to continue to do so. “Was this – the ESP – what you meant in your last video message, when you said there was something important you wanted to talk about?”

Victor sat up a little straighter and brightened. “Yes. You watched them?”

“Um. I erased the first batch completely – not just yours, but everybody’s.” Victor looked stricken. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t exactly in a good position to think straight at the time. I listened to the last eight, I think it was, that you sent me. But only a few days ago. I just couldn’t do it until then. I guess I thought I knew what you’d say anyway. Though, um…it was…good to see you again.” He received a small smile, and continued. “So…why didn’t you contact me with the ESP over the past few days, like you usually do? I got worried.”

“Well some of the time I was traveling, but I also found out that it doesn’t really work if I can’t relax properly.”

“Yeah, that…that’s normal, I think.”

Victor’s faint smile quirked a bit. “You were worried?”

A blush stained Yuuri’s cheeks. “Yes, I was. You’re surprised? You’d been contacting me every day, at least once, and then you…just vanished. It’s the kind of thing I worry about all the time, not just with you, but the other presences too. I thought something awful might’ve happened. Or…or you’d decided to break it off and never show up again. That happens a lot too.” He took a shaky breath. Wondered if he ought to sit down like Victor had. Decided to stay where he was.

Victor blinked. “I would never have done that. The person I was contacting through the ESP was always special to me…and now I can see why. You know, when I was coming toward the barn, I could feel you. I knew you were here. I mean, not _you_ you, but the – ”

“Yeah,” Yuuri cut him off, the corners of his mouth quirking again, “I know what you mean. I felt it, too. That’s what happens when people with ESP are near each other. We’re like lamps shining out in the fog.”

“Lamps shining out…” Victor muttered, the words trailing off. He huffed a little laugh, looking down. “Wow. That’s beautiful.”

Yuuri stared unabashedly at the man in front of him. Seeing him appear at the entrance to the barn…it was beyond his wildest dreams. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted to hug and kiss him more than he did in this moment. And to find out that Victor was _Velvet_ , on top of it…he should have been ecstatic. But there was one very important barrier between them that they had not yet discussed.

“Victor,” he said, his quiet voice swallowed by the piles of hay surrounding them, “are you still working for the Coughlin Institute?”

Victor looked up and met his eyes. “Yes,” he said simply.

“OK.” Yuuri took a deep breath, his heart sinking. “That’s honest, at least.”

“Yuuri…please, help me understand why it bothers you so much. I…we never got a chance to discuss it before, not properly.”

“I told you,” Yuuri said, the sharp tone back in his voice. “The presences who contacted me and showed me the symbol – the one on your ring. You know how that works now, so I guess you can understand. Each one who saw it…they were terrified of it. And they disappeared. I’m convinced they were seeing someone who wore that ring; someone who…I don’t know, attacked them, forced them to – ”

“OK,” Victor interrupted, “I remember.” He kept his voice calm and even. “I did listen, though I can’t say it made much sense to me. I was one of the founders of the Institute, Yuuri – Dr. Yevgeny Korovin and me. He’s a psychiatrist; we’ve known each other for years. Most of my life and work were centered around the Institute at Columbia, until I went to Harvard…and MIT. But…even though I’ve never seen any evidence that the Institute did anything other than good work, I met up with Dr. Korovin after you’d disappeared, and had a talk with him. He promised me they still get patient consent before operations, just like they always have.”

“And you believed him?”

Victor seemed to be searching for words.

“You don’t know the reason why I decided to have my chip removed, leave Boston and come all the way out here, do you? No…I guess you wouldn’t. This happened after I said goodbye to you and went into the neuroscience building.”

There was confusion on Victor’s face again. “Oh?”

Yuuri finally sat down on a hay bale, holding Victor’s gaze as he explained. About Crow finding him in the office; how he had a ring like Victor’s, said he worked for the Institute, and gave Yuuri a choice between joining it himself, getting a blocking chip installed, or dying. How he’d said all this after taking Yuuri’s stun gun and pointing his own laser gun at him, set to kill. Victor’s face registered his growing shock as Yuuri went on to explain how he’d only managed to escape by silently commanding the Friday to create a distraction, knocking Crow out and climbing out the window.

“I don’t know what happened to him after that,” Yuuri said, “but according to Phichit, there wasn’t any evidence by the time he went into the office that anything unusual had happened. _I_ wasn’t so lucky. There were…I don’t know what you’d call them – agents? Men in black?…after me. Shooting at me with laser guns. They sent a fucking _drone_ after me. These harmless, caring people from the Institute you work for.”

Victor looked horrified.

“I’m surprised it wasn’t in the news. Though maybe I shouldn’t be. I suppose they censor that kind of thing.”

“I didn’t hear anything about it, no,” Victor said in a small voice. “But, Yuuri…why would anyone want to – ”

“Because they see people with ESP as a threat. That’s what Crow said. If we’re not willing to be an asset to them by joining, they’re not willing to offer many other options. They can’t spy on what’s in your mind, not unless you’re entering it into your chip. They haven’t learned how to do that yet, apparently.”

Victor ran a hand across his face and sighed, then looked back at Yuuri. “Is that what he said – that they can’t spy on what’s in your mind?”

“You’ve never met him?”

“No.”

“Hope that you don’t, then,” Yuuri muttered. Then he continued in the same matter-of-fact tone, “He told me all about how they spy over the chip, even when people think it’s turned off. Like we suspected. But I think it goes deeper than that. I’m wondering if I ever had a moment of privacy since I was a child until the day I had the chip permanently removed. They knew about my ESP and were keeping an eye on me.” He paused and leaned forward, his gaze intent. “They were listening to us, Victor. That’s what he told me. Everything we said and did. _Everything._ ”

Victor continued to give him the horrified look, mixed with stunned disbelief. _It’s true, Victor,_ Yuuri thought. _Every word. Please…you’ve got to accept this. I need you to._

Victor wrinkled a brow. “You’re thinking that it’s all true, what you’ve just said. You want me to believe it.”

Now it was Yuuri’s turn to look surprised. “Yes,” he whispered.

“This…Yuuri, this has been my _life._ I’m not saying I don’t believe you. But it’s so much to take in. I’ve known a lot of people at the Institute for a long time, and to think they’d even be _aware_ of the kinds of things you’re talking about, let alone _sanction_ them…” He shook his head. “Like me, Zhenya has relatives who had treatment-resistant mental illnesses. We founded the Institute because we wanted to help them. And we did. And many others. Though…I know I’m going to have to reevaluate that in…in light of the ESP, now. But nothing there has changed since it happened to me. No one’s been hostile toward me.”

“Do they even know? Have you told anyone? Spoken about it? Done anything to let on what’s been happening?”

Victor paused to think. “Apart from taking time off work…well, no.”

“They can’t spy on what’s going through your mind or heart, Victor. The word Crow used was _inconvenient_ – for them. They don’t like it. It makes them uncomfortable.” He huffed a little laugh.

Victor shook his head and sighed. “I don’t understand much about any of this. And that’s a hard thing for a person like me to have to admit. What are we doing…who _are_ we, even, anymore?”

“But that’s just it, Victor,” Yuuri said, giving him a slight grin in spite of himself. “That’s why I became a neuroscientist in the first place. To try to understand it.”

Those focused blue eyes held his own. “I was so scared, at first, when it happened.”

“I know.”

“So…how are we supposed to go back to being researchers now? Are we going to try to secretly work out of a barn? For who? Without a chip – ”

“I know,” Yuuri repeated softly. “I’ve been thinking that the whole time I’ve been here. I couldn’t ever get a chip put back inside me, which means I’d have a hard time finding work as a scientist. There aren’t any easy answers.”

“There’s another possibility, based on what you’ve said.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened. “What?”

“We could both have blocking chips inserted, so that the ESP…um, stopped.”

“Are you serious?” Yuuri whispered, his voice shaking. “Really, Victor, is that what you’re suggesting?”

Victor seemed surprised at the quiet vehemence he was hearing. “Well I haven’t had much of a chance to think about it all – I have to say it’s been confusing, and frightening, and…it’s been hard to know what to do for the best. But maybe if we got the blocking chips put in, they’d leave us alone. We could go back and do our research again. Have normal lives.”

Yuuri had never been angrier at Victor than he was in that moment. Even so, he tried to empathize. Dr. Victor Nikiforov, world-famous accoladed neuroscientist, who had dedicated his life to his work, has just realized that his career might be over. Yuuri had a very good idea of what that kind of pain was like. He was grasping at anything that might keep him afloat.

“I’ve performed the operation many times, Yuuri,” Victor continued, seeming to hit his stride now, his voice dropping to a smooth just-take-your-medicine tone. “We could even complete the research project that we started together. Pick things back up where we left off…in lots of ways. I loved being with you. And what we’ve shared since then – the ESP…that’s been wonderful.” He smiled.

Yuuri felt nauseated. “And you want to give that up?”

Victor was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, if it means we can be together and go back to what we had.”

“Would you still work for the Institute?”

“I don’t – ”

“They tried to _kill_ me, Victor,” Yuuri said, unable to hide the anger from his voice now; and Victor’s eyes widened. “They might try to do the same to you, now you’re…like me, with the ESP.”

Victor took a gasping breath. “I want to believe you, Yuuri. But I don’t see how – ”

“Of course. Your amigo, _Zhenya._ He doesn’t make mistakes, or can’t be corrupted or fooled. Neither can you, apparently.”

The horrified look was back on Victor’s face, and a tear slid down his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said quietly. “But you need to see, Victor. I know it’s hard.” He sighed and ran a distracted glance around the barn. “I’ve had more time to take all of these things in, but they’re new to you.” He laughed bitterly. “When I think of all the times I sat by myself in this place and cried…”

“Yuuri,” Victor said gently, with a sniff.

“You’re going to have to decide whether or not you believe me,” he went on. “I hope you do. I…don’t want you to get hurt, Victor.” He paused. “In fact, I was going to go back to Boston soon, and find you and try to convince you of the truth of what I’m saying now.” Victor sat up straighter and tilted his head slightly, wrinkling a brow. “I thought I’d have to try to convince you that the ESP was real too, but well…that’s one less thing to worry about, I guess. I was going to…” He paused again, taking a deep breath and digging for his courage. “I was going to take a chance that what you and I had was real and special; that you were telling me the truth all along, as you saw it, and although you were working for the Institute, you weren’t aware of what these jacks were really up to.” He made his voice firm. “That took a lot of faith, Victor. I was ready to risk my life to do that. Because I didn’t think you’d want to keep working for them once you knew. I wouldn’t have asked you to live this fugitive life I have now; to give up your career like I guess I’ve had to. I couldn’t just leave you like that – I’m sorry I did in the first place.”

Yuuri wanted to tell him that he loved him, too. But if there was ever a bad time, it was now. He had no idea where they stood in relation to each other, and probably Victor didn’t either.

“You would’ve done that for me?” Victor said softly. “Oh Yuuri. The happiest days of my life were when we were together. And now that I’ve found out it’s _you_ I’ve been communicating with via ESP – ”

“But if we both had that operation, we wouldn’t be able to do that anymore! Doesn’t that bother you?”

Victor seemed to be at a loss for words again. “I…”

“Assuming everything else would just fall into place and be the same as before, which it wouldn’t, because at the very least we both _know_ too much. But…this isn’t just about us. The ESP is part of my life. It’s part of _me._ I’ve helped people with it. I helped _you._ There are more people who’ll need my help in the future, and I want to be there for them. You think what you went through was hard? Multiply it by ten and you might get some idea of what I went through. There wasn’t anyone out there to help me, not at first, not the way I needed. I promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen to anyone else if I could help it.”

Victor was looking at him with something akin to awe. Yuuri wasn’t sure anyone had ever looked at him quite like that before, and it was enough to slow the racing blood in his veins. He also had never known Victor to be speechless so many times in one sitting.

“Besides,” he added more softly, breaking the silence that had descended within the barn again, “like you said, it’s…a wonderful way of communicating. And it’s possible we have abilities we’re not even aware of yet. Don’t you want to explore that?” It was the scientist within him talking now, and he knew the excitement of the idea had put a spark in his eyes.

Victor stood and walked toward him, saying, “Give me something small, that’ll fit in the palm of your hand. I’d like to show you something.”

Bemused, Yuuri thought for a moment. He unzipped some pockets in his backpack, looking for a coin, when his fingers closed upon a tiny object deep at the bottom of one pocket. When he pulled it out, he discovered a little wooden silver-painted horseshoe, about the size of a quarter. He’d forgotten it was there…but yes, he’d taken his backpack to the ballgame that day.

“Oh,” Victor said in a voice Yuuri could barely hear as he extended his hand for him to place the object in. “I remember this. You kept it.”

Yuuri didn’t want to tell him he’d forgotten; but he wished he’d come across it when he was emptying his backpack in his hut, because he would’ve added it to his table along with the photos and tablets and candle. It brought back memories of simpler days, and the fluttery excitement of getting to know each other. He gave it to Victor. “Don’t do anything to damage it,” he said.

“As if I would,” Victor admonished him gently. He plucked the horseshoe from his palm and held one of its ends between the tip of his index finger and thumb. “I’m not sure I can concentrate enough to do this right now, but I’ll try. It’s something I found out by accident and just kept working at.”

Yuuri leaned forward, intrigued, and watched as Victor knelt on the straw in front of him and closed his eyes. At first, nothing happened. Then the horseshoe faded a little, becoming transparent. Yuuri gasped. It resumed its solid appearance as Victor opened his eyes, took off his backpack, pulled out a pen, and held the horseshoe up again. Once more he closed his eyes, and the horseshoe faded. Slowly his lids raised, though the horseshoe remained see-through; and he took the pen he was holding with his other hand, passing it straight through the horseshoe like a magician.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathed, his face breaking into a delighted smile.

Victor grinned, his eyes shining, and he put his pen away and gave the horseshoe back to Yuuri, who carefully returned it to its pocket.

“Victor, that’s wonderful! Look at what you can do. I never even _thought_ of that.”

“You don’t want to know what gave me the idea,” Victor said with a rough little chuckle. “I was sure I was going crazy at the time.”

“And you’d be willing to give all this up?”

Victor just looked at him, seemingly poised between pleasure at Yuuri’s praise and disappointment in the necessity of returning to their previous topic of conversation. He didn’t move to get up from the ground.

“I’ve met some others like us, with ESP,” Yuuri said. “Even some – maybe all – of the shamans who came to do our study. Did you…? No, of course you wouldn’t have known. There must be a lot more of them out there. When I think of all the things we might be able to learn from each other, and accomplish…” He took a quick breath and let it out. “No. I’m not blocking it. No one’s operating on me, Victor.” The blue eyes regarded him quietly. He swallowed. Suddenly he realized what he had to say, but it was going to be hard. He knew he had no choice, however. “But…if you want the operation yourself, that’s your decision to make. If you do, though…um.” He paused and dropped his voice. “I don’t know if I can be part of that world. I don’t know if they’d let you be either, though…you could try, I guess. Maybe, because of who you are – ”

 “No,” Victor said quickly. “No, you’re right, Yuuri. I…I don’t honestly want to block the ESP either. And I don’t want to lose you again.” They looked at each other, chests rising and falling. “I don’t know _what_ to think. It’s hard to imagine anyone at the Institute being capable of the things you’ve told me. I…just need some time to digest it all, maybe. And, uh…” He hung his head down, wiped a hand over his eyes, and then looked back up. “What this means for the future, I can’t even start to guess right now. I’m so confused.” A sob shook his shoulders briefly. “When I think I might have to leave everything behind…everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve believed in…” He muttered something in Russian.

“Victor…why don’t we give it, say, a day – is that enough time? You can go back to where you’re staying, and we could meet back here tomorrow at this time, if you want. Or the day after – ”

Victor gave him a sad smile. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Tomorrow’s fine. I stayed at, um…” He thought. “Aguanga last night. When I wasn’t sure where I’d be headed.”

“There are motels in La Jolla Amago. It’s nice there. You might like Jimmy Dean’s on the main street; they do a mean steak.”

“Thank you,” Victor said, huffing a laugh.

Yuuri stood, pulled his backpack on, and held out a hand to Victor to help him up. Victor blinked, and grasped it and stood. Yuuri instinctively guided Victor’s hand to his mouth and brushed a gentle kiss over the knuckles, squeezed and released it. They stared at each other, Victor looking a little stupefied. Then Yuuri flicked his eyes down and walked over to the cart, pulling it behind him toward the doors.

“That’s how people transport things here?” Victor said, watching.

Yuuri laughed. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe.” When he got to the doors, he ducked under the bar at the front of the cart so that it was against his chest, and walked forward into the bright day. “Bye, Victor.”

“Til tomorrow, Yuuri.”


	41. Chapter 41

Yuuri trudged toward the heart of the commune, the wooden wheels of the cart bumping along the rutted dusty road.

_I can’t believe Victor’s here._

_Victor is Velvet – I can’t believe that either. Well, yes I can, because it’s true._

_I can’t believe I’m walking away from him. Right now. That’s what I’m doing._

Though maybe the short break would be good for both of them. He discovered that his own mind was tumbling with everything he’d learned, everything they’d spoken about. His heart was still hammering, his stomach churning.

Wonderful, of course, to see Victor after all this time. Well, it was getting on toward three months, but it felt a lot longer. And he wouldn’t have to risk traveling to the east coast. At the same time, however, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Victor was so steadfast about the Institute. Did it count for so little that Yuuri had told him several times about the Orphic egg and the presences, and that his colleagues from the organization had tried to _kill_ him? His blood was starting to boil again at the thought. But Victor’s work for them was clearly close to his heart, something he’d poured effort and love into. Just because Yuuri hadn’t experienced that part of his life, other than his absences while he was in New York, didn’t mean it was any less important to him. It was cognitive dissonance again, Yuuri decided, and this time on Victor’s part: the need to reconcile what he thought he knew about the Coughlin Institute with what Yuuri was telling him, having seen no evidence of it himself. Yes, maybe it would just take some time. Yuuri told himself he’d have to be patient.

He pulled the cart to the lodge and trotted up the steps to the kitchen, where a group of women were preparing food for dinner.

“There you are,” one of them said to him as he put the sack of potatoes he was carrying on the counter. “We’ve been needing those vegetables.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri said. “Look, I need to take this afternoon off. I – I’m not feeling too good today. I’ll make it up to you another time. Can you come help me get these bags into the kitchen?”

Once they were done, Yuuri walked back to his shack, his head still swimming. He wondered what he and Victor might do when they met again the following day. If Victor would have decided by then to trust what he’d been telling him about the Institute. Of course they would then find themselves in the same difficult situation they would have been in if Yuuri had traveled to Boston and had the same conversation with him. Surely Victor wouldn’t want to get another chip; though without one, neither of them would be able to work as scientists. Yuuri felt a stab of guilt – but was it his fault that Victor stood to lose the career that meant so much to him? Maybe not…but he knew how painful it was likely to be for him, and Yuuri could already feel within himself a sympathetic echo.

Well at least he’d told them here that he’d be leaving soon, he thought as he arrived at his shack and went inside, dropping his backpack to the floor. Those were plans he didn’t feel a need to rearrange. Victor probably wouldn’t like it here any more than he had. Though where they would go next, or what their futures held…

Too late, he saw the shadow spill from the doorway. Spinning around, he was confronted with Crow pointing a laser gun at him. A tremor of fear shook through him and he froze. Crow, long-haired and dressed in denim as usual, smiled.

“I always had a feeling Dr. Nikiforov would find you first. He’s a determined man. And now, thanks to his help, I’ve got you exactly where I want you. We have some unfinished business, don’t we, Yuuri?”

“Victor – ”

“One-track mind, this boy,” Crow said with a laugh. “Did you really believe everything he told you just now? Like he didn’t know _exactly_ what he was doing when he walked into that barn, acting like such a well-meaning innocent? What would you say if I told you he was an agent like me, so good at hiding his ESP that he had you fooled all along? Eh?”

“I’d say you were talking bullshit,” Yuuri bit out.

Crow smirked. “He’s done a top job on you, then. Defending him to the last. If I was as suave as he is, I’d get the fun work too. You know, him and me, we’re like players on a team. You’re a baseball fan.” His smirk grew wider. “Think of him as the leadoff man, and I’m the cleanup hitter.”

Yuuri stared silently, with fire in his eyes, though he was trembling and hoped it didn’t show.

“I could shoot you right now. But I’m going to enjoy myself first. Make you regret what you did to me in your office back at MIT. Remember that? I fucking well do.” He raised his voice on the last sentence. Then had a quick glance around the room. “So this is where you’ve been hiding out. Real first-class accommodation.”

Yuuri had tried several times, desperately, to mentally disable his gun, but could not put himself in the right frame of mind to do any damage to it. While Crow rattled on, his thoughts raced. If he made a move to pull out his stun gun, Crow would see. There was no Friday here to create a distraction. No way out. He could hear his breaths shaking as he drew each one.

“It almost feels like enough punishment to leave you in this dump,” Crow continued. “But you’re too much of a loose cannon.” He gave the laser gun a flick. “Have you ever used one of these on someone, Yuuri? They don’t have to kill right away if you don’t want them to. You can…dismember someone piece by piece, for example. Blind them. Burn their skin off.”

Yuuri made a mewling sound as tears sprang to his wide-open eyes. He hated himself for it. Crow beamed at him.

“Do you know how I know? Because I’ve done all of those things. Maybe I’ll discover a new one with you.”

He raised the gun.

***

Victor watched Yuuri disappear out of the barn, feeling a strange sense of loss as he left. It seemed for a moment as if he’d stepped into a painting hanging in an art gallery of a time long past – the dark red barn filled with hay; Yuuri in his old-fashioned clothes, pushing a wooden cart. That outfit really did suit him, oddly enough. As focused as he’d been on graver matters, a more instinctive part of Victor had kept wanting to push the loose hemp shirt and suspenders aside and kiss that delicious-looking neck and collarbone and chest. Though…Yuuri’s lips on his knuckles like that had been a lovely surprise too…

 _Stop thinking with your dick and engage your brain,_ he told himself firmly.

He sat back down on a hay bale, pulling his backpack toward him. Anything to distract himself from the catastrophe that it seemed was looming ahead of him now. Block the ESP and everything would be OK. Well, Yuuri had set him right on that score. He’d needed it, and Victor respected him for not pulling his punches, however much it hurt. And fantasizing about sex with Yuuri had a habit of blotting many other things out of his mind, too. He hoped they would have the chance to get around to that again. But for now, there were many difficult questions that needed an answer. If not today, then soon.

He realized how easy it had been to take a surreptitious kind of comfort from the unshakeable belief he’d had that Yuuri was sick. That explained everything he was saying about the Orphic egg and the Institute. And when _that_ no longer jibed with reality, Victor had decided that Yuuri must simply be mistaken; that he wasn’t seeing the bigger picture.

Victor was increasingly doubtful that there _was_ a bigger picture…or maybe it was himself, and not Yuuri, who was failing to see it.

_Zhenya, we’re going to have to have another conversation. A real, honest one._

And yet it was still such a wrench to consider the possibility that the organization he’d helped to found and had been working for all these years – whose purpose was to help people who were suffering – was…coercing, even killing them. But to say it was nonsense was to deny everything Yuuri had told him.

 _Men in black after me. Shooting at me with laser guns. They sent a fucking_ drone _after me. These harmless, caring people from the Institute you work for._

Victor’s frame shook with a sob as he placed his head in his hands. He didn’t want to believe what Yuuri was saying. Didn’t want to _disbelieve_ it. He was like a fish flapping on the end of a hook.

Trust. That was what it boiled down to. Didn’t Yuuri just tell him he’d been planning to risk his life, as he saw it, to return to Boston to tell him what he knew? Hoping Victor would believe him about the ESP on top of it. Not even to ask Victor to give anything up for him, but – what had he said? _Because I didn’t think you’d want to keep working for them once you knew_. He would’ve done it just for the sake of Victor’s integrity.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever come across a more moving example of selfless love. Neither of them had said with words how they felt about the other. But that was it, there. He ran his hands over his face, too many emotions swirling through him to try to untangle.

When he raised his head again, wiping at his tears with the back of his hand, it occurred to him that he was just sitting here while Yuuri walked away. What must he think of him? Victor had been asking for his trust, but not giving it. Yes, they both needed to do some thinking. Yes, Victor was still confused about what was really going on with the Coughlin Institute. But they could find their way through together. He didn’t need, or want, to wander off back into some little dust-bitten town to spend the night on his own. He was going to find Yuuri.

He pulled the satellite map out of his backpack and took some breaths to calm himself. Closed his eyes and ran his finger over the paper, then marked with his pencil where it stopped. Did this several more times. He realized it was hard to be totally accurate; there were a few of these small buildings clustered in the same area, any of which might be Yuuri’s residence. Because Yuuri had no doubt not had time to arrive back yet, Victor had been focusing on where he _lived_ rather than where he _was_ , and he wasn’t sure how well that had worked either.

Wait – of course. _Lamps shining out in the fog._ He should be able to sense Yuuri’s presence if, by the time Victor got to the area, he was there. It was the feel of his Zvezda, after all, and he knew it well. A happy thrill suddenly shot through him when he reflected again on them being the same person, and all the new things they might explore together. Had he really, seriously, wanted to block it all out?

He called himself an idiot aloud in Russian as he tucked the map into an easily accessible slot in his backpack for now; there was only one path running past the barn, and Victor knew the direction he needed to head for. Standing, he brushed straw off his clothes, then walked past the double doors and into a beautiful bright, warm day.

Adam was standing there, waiting for him.

Victor gasped and stood still. There was nothing threatening about the man in his appearance; the same messy black hair slicked back, and black slacks and white work shirt, as if he were outside an office block rather than a barn on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere. He wore a gray suit jacket, even though he must be sweltering in it.

They spoke at almost the same time.

“Victor.”

“What are you doing here?” A vague chain of disquieting thoughts raced through his brain, but before he could make sense of any of them, Adam spoke again.

“We were worried about you. Those days of work you missed – ”

“I was sick,” Victor replied warily. “You came out here to check up on me, did you?”

“You booked a plane ticket to San Diego, then had your chip removed. We were wondering if you might’ve found out where Dr. Katsuki was.”

“And no one thought to talk to me about it?” Victor’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been spying on me. That’s what you are, isn’t it? A spy.”

Adam gave him a mildly pitying look. “I can see Dr. Katsuki’s been scaring you with all his ideas. I overheard the conversation you both had in the barn. How he’s insisting that people have been trying to kill him.”

“You…what?” Victor’s eyes widened. “You listened in on that? How…” He took a step back, an absurd image coming to mind of Adam holding the end of an old-fashioned doctor’s stethoscope against the wooden wall so he could hear, though of course there were electronic devices that could do such things. Suddenly he felt utterly violated…and betrayed.

 _Yuuri was right,_ he thought, a shudder of fear rippling from head to toe. _About everything. Yuuri…he’s in danger too…_

“Victor – look, we don’t mean either of you any harm. But we have to keep tabs on people with ESP, as far as we can. They can be a threat to themselves and others. Look at what it did to your sister, until you helped her. You’ve been doing important work for us, and we don’t want to lose you. You did the right thing, suggesting to Dr. Katsuki that you both get the blocking chip inserted. Then you can both come back to Boston, and everything will be fine.”

Adam, it seemed, had never given him much credit for having a brain larger than a pea. “Who else is here with you?”

“I came on my own.”

“I doubt that. And you expect me to believe that you dogged my footsteps all the way to this barn, here, just because you were concerned?” He paused, eyeing the other man’s stony face. “They have a saying in England. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. It means I don’t believe a word of it, Adam. Not one word. Now I’m going to find Yuuri, and I don’t expect you to follow me.” He made to leave.

“I can’t do that, Victor,” Adam said flatly. He’d pulled a laser gun out of a coat pocket so quickly Victor hardly had time to register it, and was now pointing it at him. Victor wasn’t completely surprised; he knew he’d been making a show of false bravado, and that Adam was not going to let him simply walk away after all the trouble he’d taken to follow him. But a laser gun…?

_If I’d believed Yuuri from the start, I would have been prepared for this. Somehow._

_I have to do something. But what?_

“What are you doing?” he said, trying to gather his thoughts together. “You just told me you didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.” The false bravado again. _Think, think._

“We want you back, Victor. I was being honest about that. We’d even let Dr. Katsuki and you – now that we know you can do it too – use your ESP to benefit our work. But since that mostly involves finding and eliminating other people with ESP, I guess that’s not something you’d be interested in. Which is why I said the blocking chip could be an option for you.”

Victor just stared. “What?” he finally breathed. Again, it should not have been a surprise, not after what Yuuri had told him. But to hear it confirmed by Adam…“You’ve been trying to get information out of me since you came on to me at the bar, haven’t you? Why…why would you do something like this? Since when did the Coughlin Institute send agents to kill people?”

“There’s a lot you don’t understand, Victor. We could’ve had this all cleared up a long time ago; Katsuki could’ve been eliminated before he set foot in MIT. But we wanted to see how it played out. We assess the level of threat first. And when the two of you got together, we wanted to see what the draw was, what you were collaborating on. What was so important for you to want to leave your work in New York.” He barked a laugh. “Turns out you just wanted to get into each other’s pants. But when Katsuki started talking about the symbol on the ring, and everything else he’d learned…we couldn’t let him go around telling people about that. We can’t let you do that with him, either. I’m going to give you one more chance to agree to come back to New York with me, Victor. Forget about Katsuki, and you can get right back to doing all the things that are important to you, and us.”

“Or what?” Victor said, though he knew the answer. He’d been listening to Adam’s speech with half an ear, trying in vain to think of a way out of the situation. But then, finally, something struck him. Of course…

Adam waved the gun. “I’m authorized to use this, though I’d honestly rather you just agreed to come with me.” He paused. “I might not have been telling the truth about being attracted to you, but I don’t like killing nice jacks.”

He gasped and jumped back as several blue sparks suddenly flew out of his gun. Victor launched himself at him, praying he’d succeeded in disabling it, or he was living the last few seconds of his life. Adam tried to fire at him, but nothing happened, and then they crashed together, sprawling on the ground. Victor wasn’t used to fighting people, but years of workouts had given him strength, and he was also tall. Adam tried to punch his stomach and jaw, but he either dodged or blocked the moves, then finally managed to win a dominant position on top, pin Adam’s wrist holding the gun down, and pull it away from him. Then he scrambled back, switched the setting on the gun from kill to stun, and fired it, not knowing if it would have any effect but figuring it was worth a try.

A white electric web shot out of the gun and engulfed Adam, knocking him flat on his back. He did not move or open his eyes.

Victor examined the warm burnished-silver gun in his hand. Moved the setting back to kill with a shudder, and fired at a tree; but again, nothing happened. He appeared to have damaged the setting Adam had been trying to use, but not the other one. Well, that was fine, he thought. All he needed to do was incapacitate, not kill. 

He jumped to his feet and began to run toward the settlement, praying he found Yuuri before anyone else did. So this was why he’d thought it was so important to teach Victor how to disable electronic devices. He’d been afraid the presences might have trouble like this. Luckily Victor had practiced until he’d been able to do it himself, figuring that if it had meant that much to the teacher, he would take his lead and trust him.

That word again. Trust. Maybe if he’d taken Yuuri’s warnings more seriously, he would have come armed himself. Adam had inadvertently solved that problem for him, though he couldn’t be sure how long the stun setting would continue to work, either. Attacking the components in the way he had was no more precise than sticking a fork in a toaster.

He’d briefly pulled out the satellite map to check where he needed to go, then tucked it back in and slowed down as he approached the cluster of huts. He was on a small rise looking down at corrugated roofs and trees. Which one was Yuuri’s? Was he even here? Despite the sense of urgency prodding him to hurry, he continued to move slowly, from the partial concealment of one tree to another, holding the gun at the ready.

And then he felt it. Zvezda. Almost as if he were being pulled, like a magnet. Thank god – he was alive, and he was _here._ Victor moved silently, hugging the walls of shacks now, knowing he mustn’t allow himself to be seen. There was no one else around, fortunately; no one to notice him and cry out that a stranger was creeping across their property.

Peeking around the corner of a shack, he saw one across the road, tucked a little way into the trees. A man dressed in worn denim was standing in the doorway with his back facing out. Victor couldn’t see past him to what was inside, but he was sure Yuuri was there. He could feel it. And…oh god, he was _terrified._

Victor took aim. He was certain he hadn’t made a sound, but the man started to turn around, swift as lightning. Hesitating no longer, Victor fired – and the man went down. Pocketing the gun, Victor ran to the shack and glanced down at the unconscious form on the ground in the doorway, then looked up, and saw Yuuri standing in the middle of the small room. He was breathing hard, looking back at him with fear on his tear-stained face. What had that man done to him?

“Yuuri – ” he began; but as soon as he held his hand out, Yuuri shrank away, his back bumping against the far wall of the metal shack. He seemed surprised at this, and a hunted look flashed through his eyes. “It’s all right,” Victor said softly, his voice shaking a little as he watched Yuuri’s reaction. “I got him. We can get out of here.” He took a step forward, and instantly realized it was a mistake.

“Don’t touch me!” Yuuri cried.

“Yuuri, what – ”

“They came with you. Thanks to you, they almost got me.”

His voice was still raised to a shout, but it was stuttering and mixed with sobs. Victor could feel his agitation filtering through his skin into his bones. He wasn’t sure if it was due to finding Yuuri in such a distressed state, or whether the ESP was somehow conveying it through a link. And he was…accusing Victor of deliberately bringing these agents here?

“Crow said it was your real aim all along. Were you trying to find me just so you could lead them here?” His voice went a notch higher. “Are there more of them waiting outside? Did you stun him just to…to give me some false sense of confidence; to try to win back my trust?”

Victor felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Of course I didn’t know anyone had followed me,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t bring them with me. I was as surprised to see them as y – ”

“Think about it, Victor! Think about how this looks to me. Right now. You coming here, and them showing up. Crow…saying…all that.” He was gasping for breath now, slipping down a little against the wall, his palms against the metal. He swallowed and closed his eyes.

Victor thought this must be what an anxiety attack was like. He didn’t want Yuuri to feel cornered. But at the same time, he didn’t want Yuuri to think that he had some sort of ulterior motive either. It took him right back to their last conversation at MIT. He felt sick.

“He…he said…” Yuuri’s eyes were still closed. “…said you were an agent working with him. That you’d hidden the ESP until you wanted me to see it. H-He was…” A small noise escaped his throat. “He was going to torture me.”

With wide eyes, Victor turned and looked at the man on the ground, as if viewing him a second time could provide some explanation for the monstrous things he’d been filling Yuuri’s head with. Then he looked back at Yuuri. “Jesus,” he said simply. “Did…did you believe what he told you about me? I’ve never seen him before in my life, Yuuri, I swear.” When Yuuri just continued to eye him suspiciously, he added, “A man I do know – or _thought_ I knew – from the Institute showed up outside the barn just after you left. He said he’d listened to our conversation through the wall. Then he…he threatened to kill me.” He sighed and gave Yuuri as earnest a look as he could, his own mix of feelings spilling into his words. “You were right. Everything you said. I was so stupid, so blind. I can’t believe…Everything I thought I was working for – my friends, my colleagues…” No, he was not going to break down in tears now. He had to try to be strong for them both. “It’s all been a lie,” he whispered.

Yuuri just stood and looked at him, his breaths still coming rapidly. “Where did you get the gun?”

“Huh? Oh. I…managed to partially disable it, like…like you taught me to. It won’t kill, but it seems to work as a stun gun. I took the agent out and was worried about you, so I came to find you.”

Pause. “A likely story.”

Victor felt like the accused at a witch trial, and was rocked with another surge of anger at the man on the ground for poisoning Yuuri’s mind after they’d just had a make-up session, of sorts. Hauling all his old doubts to light. Somehow he seemed to have known the right things to say for maximum impact. “I’m not your enemy, Yuuri. I wish there was some way to show you.” Silence fell between them again, then he looked at the man once more. “This is Crow? The one who tried to kill you in your office?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said in a quieter voice. “He’s got ESP too.” Then, more sharply, “But you know that, don’t you?”

“No, of course not.” He suddenly noticed the laser gun that Crow had dropped on the ground, and knelt to pick it up. When he stood, holding it, his heart lurched as he saw Yuuri flinch back. He reached out slowly to give him the gun, and after a moment’s hesitation Yuuri took it, changed the setting, and pointed it – at Crow, Victor noticed with some relief, rather than at himself.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Yuuri said, his face a picture of confusion. Those big brown eyes, searching his.

_Search all you want, my love. I don’t have anything to hide from you._

Yuuri blinked. Maybe he’d caught a flicker of Victor’s thoughts. His breaths were gradually slowing. “You’re…the person I’ve been contacting with ESP,” he continued, more softly. “And you’re Victor.” A pause, and a sniffle. “But you’re also a founder of the Institute, and consciously or not, you led those agents here – they’ve been looking for me, and I thought I’d gotten away.”   

“I’m sorry, Yuuri. I should’ve believed you from the start.”

Yuuri swallowed again, clearly thinking. He took several deep breaths, stood up straighter, and wiped his face with his sleeve. “I – I…don’t know what to say. But…we can’t stay here. We’ve got to get away. A long way away. He can feel us, but he’s got some way of hiding his…signal, or whatever you want to call it, so that we won’t know when he’s around.”

“We?” Victor echoed hopefully. “You’ll come with me?”

Yuuri walked to his backpack and took some things out of a cupboard to put inside, his movements slow, like he could not completely make up his mind what to do or think, though he seemed to have decided this was the best option for now. Toothbrush, comb, razor, soap. “I was going to go to the east coast to find you,” he muttered as he worked. “I guess being here with you, like this, isn’t much different.”

“Oh.” Victor wasn’t sure whether or not to be pleased by the answer.

“Watch him. If he moves a muscle – ”

“OK.” Victor looked at Crow, but also at what Yuuri was doing. “This is where you’ve been living?”

“Yeah,” came the quick, distracted answer.

Victor tried to think of something to say. _I’m sorry,_ or maybe _It must have been hard for you._ But it all felt trite. Surely, most of those times they’d been in contact with ESP, if not all, this was where Yuuri had been. A tiny, dark room with an earthen floor in a tin shack. A makeshift bed, a few cursory items of furniture. Nothing like the pretty dried-mud homes he’d spied from a hill further off. What had he been doing here all this time? They had a lot to talk about still.

There were several objects on a low table; Victor’s eyes followed as Yuuri picked them up to pack them. It felt like his heart would burst with joy when he recognized the two framed photos as the ones that had been hanging in Yuuri’s office the day he had arrived – himself, and Freddie Mercury. Yuuri had brought them all the way here with him and…put them in some kind of shrine, from the look of it. He wanted to ask about it, but the sheepish look on Yuuri’s face as he packed them indicated it was best not to; not yet.   

Yuuri shouldered his backpack. “We’d better go.”

Victor couldn’t help himself; he looked at the lonely little bed and gave voice to his thoughts from moments before. “Were you contacting me from here? Those times we…with the ESP?”

Apparently taken aback, Yuuri stood still. Then the most beautiful little grin lit up his face. “Yes.” Victor grinned too. “Come on.” He pulled the laser gun out with one hand and took Victor’s with his other, leading him carefully past the motionless form of Crow, back outside. “Maybe you’d better carry yours out here too, just in case. I don’t know how many of them there are.”

“Hm? Oh.” Already missing the brief physical contact between them, Victor took out Adam’s damaged gun and allowed it to rest in his hand as they began to run along the wide dirt road he remembered traveling before, which ran between the settlement and the nearest town. Yuuri seemed to want to be in charge for the moment, and he was fine with that. He wouldn’t know where to go right now, anyway. Did he still have an apartment he could fly back to? Did…did he have access to his own money, even?

As they went, the thoughts filtered in one by one, each feeding a growing sense of panic that his life, as he knew it, was over.


	42. Chapter 42

When they got to the town, Yuuri continued to guide their actions with the confidence of someone who knew what he was doing. “They’ll figure we came here,” he huffed as they slowed to a quick walk on the sidewalk along the main street. “So I guess there’s no point worrying about security cameras. I usually take them out wherever I go, so they can’t spot me.”

“You…take them out?”

“Yeah…like you said you did with the gun. So they don’t work. I don’t like it, but I haven’t figured out what else I can do.”

“Isn’t there any way to…I don’t know…shield yourself? So they don’t pick you up?”

Yuuri looked at him in surprise. “I never thought of that. But…I’m not sure. It’s worth looking into, anyway.” He went into tour-guide mode again as they walked. “It’s always worth looking into stuff like that. It seems to be the only way to learn, through trial and error, unless you can find someone who can teach you.”

“Yes, I know,” Victor said with a smile.

Yuuri looked disconcerted for a moment, then continued, “And I’ve always avoided big towns and cities until now. But I think it might be worth taking the risk to go somewhere near San Diego this time, because they won’t know where to start looking there. We can get a taxi from here. I guess we’d better not stick around longer than we have to, because there’s no telling when those agents will wake up. You don’t…” He darted a glance at Victor. “…you don’t happen to know how long the stun lasts on people, do you?”

“No. I’ve never touched one of those guns til today.”

The words hung between them, reminding Victor that not long before, Yuuri was backing away from him against a wall, accusing him of being an agent in league with the one who’d attacked him. The fact that he was here with him now seemed to be remarkable progress in itself.

“Do you see any branches of your bank here?” Yuuri asked him.

“Uh, no. Not that I’ve been looking. But I _was_ wondering if I’d still be able to get access to my accounts.”

“You can do it here without a chip if you go to a bank, but I don’t know what powers the Institute’s got to block things. Someone can probably do it in a second. They’re affiliated with the CIA, after all.”

Victor halted. When Yuuri noticed, he turned on the sidewalk to look at him. “What?”

“The CIA?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said, coming close so that they could talk quietly. “I…I thought you knew.”

“I knew the government was involved, but – ”

“Crow told me in the office at MIT.”

Victor wrinkled an eyebrow and shook his head, looking for words. Eventually all he could think to say was, “Jesus.”

Yuuri looked at him curiously for a moment, then said, “Come on, we’ll go to the Cloud café. I don’t know how much time we have before people come looking for us, but we’ll see if there’s a bank here you can go to, and I’ll try to find a place in San Diego that looks good as a destination. We – ”

“Yuuri,” Victor said gently, pulling at his sleeve to stop him from leaving. “I’m here too. I can help. You don’t have to try to figure all this out on your own.”

Yuuri gave a small sigh, but his face looked troubled. “Sorry. I…it helps with the anxiety, to…to feel like I’m actively doing something about it. And, uh…I’m just really mixed up about things still. I thought if we could get away from these agents and feel like we were safe, for a while at least – ”

“Sure. OK.” Victor gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though he felt his stomach sink.

As they visited the Cloud café and then the bank, Victor didn’t want to admit that he was feeling anxious himself. It was conceivable that Adam and Crow were both awake and pursuing them now. That maybe they had confederates in the area they had contacted. If any of them had access to a car, taxi, hovercraft…he half-expected at any moment to be confronted by an agent or to suddenly be shot at. Was this what Yuuri had been living with all this time; this fear that someone might be coming after him?

 _Oh Yuuri. I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all this,_ he thought as they approached the taxi terminal on the west edge of town.

Then, with a painful start, he realized that they were both going to be experiencing it now.

Victor insisted on paying for the taxi when they got inside, though Yuuri had to give the specifics of their destination, since he’d looked it up; a motel on the northern outskirts of the city, near the ocean. Victor could easily pay for anything in cash right now. He had bundles of it – which didn’t exactly put him at ease. Yuuri said he’d been carrying large amounts of cash around since he’d left Boston, always stashed in his backpack; though Victor knew they were more likely to encounter pickpockets and muggers near a big city than they were out here. Still, it was better than not having any money at all. Though if he was unable to go back to work and therefore was not being paid, it wouldn’t last forever. He did what he’d been doing every time these disturbing thoughts intruded into his consciousness, and pushed them aside. Now was not the time to try to address them.

This taxi had a more modern design that embraced its driverless nature, consisting on the inside of two long black benches facing each other, with simple consoles and slots for cash on metal strips behind each bench. The sun was dipping down to the western horizon, toward which they were traveling on the empty road. Yuuri sat across from Victor, seemingly unsure of how to start a conversation.

“I’d been meaning to ask you about what you were wearing,” Victor said, deciding on what he hoped was a safe topic. “Those clothes – they look like they’re made of hemp. I saw other people at the commune dressed like that.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “They’re…against imported clothing. Or something like that. And clothing made out of modern materials, too. They, uh…” He hung his head down for a moment and laughed quietly again, then looked back up. “They made me burn my other clothes when I arrived.”

“Burn?” Victor echoed, appalled.

“Burn. In a ceremony. To welcome me there.”

“They welcomed you by making you burn your clothes?”

Yuuri gave him a little crooked grin. “Well, they gave me a few sets of these new clothes, anyway. And you’ve got to admit, they have some quality footwear.” He lifted a brown leather-shoed foot. “Though I’ve got some athletic wear in my backpack that I’ve been putting on when I jog. I’m going to get rid of all these weird homespun clothes the first chance I get.”

“Don’t do that,” Victor said hastily. “I know they’re unusual, but you, um…they look good on you.”

Yuuri’s mouth quirked and his cheeks pinked delightfully, but he remained quiet.

“That didn’t look like a nice place to be staying. It doesn’t sound like it, either.”

“I’m not sorry to be leaving,” Yuuri said, looking out the window.

There was another silence while Victor tried to think of something different to talk about, as Yuuri didn’t elaborate on his comment. But then he turned back to look at Victor with a solemn gaze, and he wondered if Yuuri was going to reveal some fresh horror; he felt he’d had about as much as he was able to cope with for one day.

“You ought to know about Crow,” Yuuri said.

“You told me – ”

“I know. But there’s more.”

“OK.” Victor blinked and took a deep breath.

Yuuri paused before beginning. “I knew him before, um…before he came to my office. I’d seen him around the city and never really noticed, but then one evening after work he was sheltering from the rain in an alley near my apartment building, must’ve been about…maybe six months ago. I felt him before I saw him…you know, the way we do.”

“The ESP.”

“Yeah, though I didn’t know what it was at the time. He told me. Anyway, um…he said he was homeless and asked if he could stay at my place for a couple of days while the housing association sorted something out for him.”

Victor’s brow wrinkled. “And you let him?”

“Well yeah,” Yuuri said defensively. “What was I supposed to do, kick him back out into the rain? It seemed like he needed help.”

“And you wanted to help him,” Victor said gently. “Oh Yuuri. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Well, no. But I was also interested in the ESP. I thought maybe he might be able to teach me some things. You don’t come across people like that every day, you know?”

“Did he?”

Yuuri’s eyes flicked for a moment around the cab. “Yes and no.” Then he looked back at Victor. “I know it wasn’t very bright of me. I wish I hadn’t done it, but – ”

“OK, so what happened?”

“Nothing…um, nothing like _that._ I didn’t invite him in with, you know, the idea of seducing him or anything – ”

Victor laughed. “I didn’t think you had.”

“I wanted to tell you about him. But I hadn’t told you about the ESP yet. I didn’t…well, it would’ve been hard to explain. Anyway, he was creepy. When he left, I really thought I’d never have to see him again. Remember how good I am at Brainquake? Well, Crow saw I had it on my shelf and asked if I wanted to play. I thought it’d be interesting, so I agreed. And he beat me as easily as I beat you. Every time.”

Victor’s eyes widened and a chill crept down his back. “Shit.” 

“I think he was just trying to lord it over me or something.” His voice quietened. “On top of that, he’s…a sadist, I think. I…I’m frightened of him.”

Victor nodded in sympathy. That seemed to go a long way toward explaining the state Yuuri had been in when he’d found him in his shack. “Let’s hope we’ve seen the last of him, then.”

“I don’t think we have,” Yuuri said quickly. “He was pissed off because of the first time I got away from him at MIT. We’ve just done it to him again. I get the idea he might be the type to hold a grudge.”

Victor rested a hand against his mouth, pondering. As if having ordinary people like Adam after them wasn’t bad enough. “Maybe I should’ve killed him earlier, when I had the chance.”

Yuuri sucked in a breath. “You’re the one who’s been trying to convince me all this time that you wouldn’t do something like that.”

Red flashed through Victor, quickening his pulse. “What else would you suggest, if _he’s_ going to keep trying to kill _us_? I’ve never killed anyone, Yuuri. I’ve never used a gun before today, not even a stun gun. I don’t intentionally hurt anyone. For fuck’s sake, I’ve spent my whole life trying to _help_ people.” He was starting to tremble and took a breath while Yuuri stared. “But to protect myself, and more importantly, to protect you? Maybe I would’ve done it, if I’d known how much of a threat he was.”

Yuuri just continued to stare.

“What,” Victor said flatly, his eyelids beginning to droop with exhaustion.

“Well…putting the moral question aside, we’d have the police after us for murder. And anyway, the opportunity’s past.”

Victor sighed and looked out the window.

“Victor.”

The soft voice made him turn back to meet Yuuri’s eyes.

“It was…good to see you in the barn earlier. I never expected that. Or that you’d turn out to be…you know, the person I was communicating with through ESP. Well, the most regular presence. The…the most special. I’ve just got a lot to get straight in my head. So much has happened so fast.”

“Tell me about it.” But he felt his heart warming again. “It was good to see you too.”

It wasn’t much, he thought. But it was a start.

***

Yuuri saw that Victor didn’t seem to be in the mood to say a great deal more; he reckoned he had a lot on his mind, a lot to work out. He did himself. The hilly scrubland passed by outside the window as the taxi hurtled along. After a journey of a little over an hour, they were nearing the outskirts of the city, a pale pink and yellow screen glowing behind a cluster of tall buildings, with an ocean horizon in the distance mirroring the tinted sky. He’d seen this before, he realized…the shaman in the lab, again. But he couldn’t remember what else he’d shown him, and wished he’d thought to take research notes at the time.

He took on a businesslike mien again as they neared the area north of town where the motel he’d chosen was located. Victor was resting a hand against his chin and looking with glazed eyes out the window; Yuuri wondered what he was thinking. He had to interrupt him, though, just to make sure he knew what to do so that they could stay safe.

“Victor,” he said, and Yuuri watched him start as if he’d been suddenly awakened, “I thought I’d better just go over this, though maybe you’ll have thought of these things yourself. We can’t make calls on tablets. Actually, we can’t call anyone with a chip in their head, not even on a payphone, because someone might be spying. We’ll need to take cameras out wherever we go in public – that’ll be especially important now, because we might be expected to come here to hide. It’s best to avoid main streets completely, because they tend to have cameras, too. Best to keep food of our own to eat in the motel so we don’t have to risk being seen in local businesses.”

Still with his hand against his chin, Victor looked at him quietly. “That’s a long list. Though…yeah, OK. We’re fugitives now, aren’t we?”

Yuuri was going to reply that he hadn’t stopped being a fugitive himself, but then the taxi came to a halt in a dim parking lot overhung by palm trees. There was an embankment, and then beach and sea. The hotel itself was a compact three-story converted manor house, white with bay windows and a gray shingled roof; Yuuri had chosen it for its character as well as its location, but also because it would presumably be harder for an agent to lurk or pose as one of the other guests in a small place like this. They got out quietly, taking their backpacks with them, and walked toward the entrance, Yuuri gently pulling Victor to the side with him as they neared the double glass doors. He peeked around, scanning the reception area for security cameras, so used to this by now that the action was automatic. When he found them, they burst into white sparks, one after the other. There was a desk attendant – presumably there as part of the friendly ambience, as most places like this were automated – who spun around in confusion.

Victor gave him a crooked smile. “I see.”

“Come on,” Yuuri said, walking through the doors. Victor followed.

Yuuri wondered how often he would have to wreck the cameras here; how soon they would be repaired. He supposed he would have to check each time he ventured into the lobby, though this sort of thing didn’t seem to be a high priority in most businesses; more the irritation of flies buzzing around you. Then he realized that Victor was talking to the attendant, asking for separate single rooms next to each other.

“If that’s OK?” he said, looking at Yuuri, who could only nod; they hadn’t discussed it, and it wasn’t really a conversation to have in the lobby in front of the attendant anyway. They gave false names and took room cards after explaining they didn’t have chips to automatically let them in; and as they walked down the bright white hall to old wooden doors that looked as if they had received many layers of paint over the years, they agreed to settle in for half an hour, then meet and go looking for supplies. Soon Yuuri was standing by himself in a typical bare nondescript hotel room with white plaster walls, a high ceiling, a large window overlooking the sea, a small bathroom, bed, and desk. Also with, he noted, the 2D television that seemed standard in rooms here in California.

It felt like the height of luxury after the shack he’d been living in. It also felt like he’d set foot in some alien world, or a disturbing dream. No more Children of Gaia. No trip to Boston. Victor had found him – but so had agents from the Institute. Hopefully they had escaped, but how he and Victor were supposed to mend things between them, especially after what had just happened…Crow’s words still haunted him. Maybe part of him _was_ paranoid; but when you were running for your life, sometimes it was easy to be suspicious of everybody, even people you thought you knew well, given enough reason.

He lay on his bed, noticing there was a closed door connecting their rooms. He couldn’t get his mind off Victor on the other side. Was he was feeling as lost and confused as himself? He suspected the answer was yes, and probably more so. Before his emotions worked themselves into too much of a muddle, he went into the bathroom with his backpack, took a quick shower, changed into his athletic wear and tennis shoes, put the laser gun in one pocket and the stun gun in the other, then leafed through a guidebook to the area he’d found in the desk; something he thought had disappeared from such places at least twenty years ago. Checking his watch, he figured they wouldn’t mind if he borrowed it, as it listed local stores and their locations. He put on his backpack and went into the hallway, where Victor was waiting for him.

Yuuri bought simple casual clothes, jeans and plain T-shirts – as much as he could fit in his backpack, which was large enough for a camping expedition but not huge. He’d decided to keep one set of clothes from the commune, giving the other set to a thrift shop they passed, though he didn’t intend to wear them; they would be more of a memento, he decided – something he could take out to think about what he’d gone through, in a better future. Then they stocked up on enough food to take back to the motel for several days; dry goods plus things that would fit inside the little refrigerators that were meant for storing drinks, along with wooden cutlery and paper plates. Another smile crept across Victor’s face when Yuuri asked him to take a turn with disabling a security camera, which he did without a hitch; and little surge of pride swept through Yuuri as he watched. But it was the only time Victor smiled while they were in the stores, or sitting in Yuuri’s room eating a dinner of fruit and quiche, until they were done and Victor got up to declare that he supposed they both needed a rest after the day they’d had, with a little grin that was perhaps meant to be warm but didn’t reach his eyes. Then he was gone through the door adjoining their rooms, which closed behind him with a click.

 _We both just have a lot to think about,_ Yuuri told himself again as he felt his heart sink. He felt he ought to start trying to untangle the threads of his thoughts and feelings, but he didn’t have the energy. Maybe Victor was right, and they both just needed to rest for a while.

He found a Mexican baseball game on TV, this being the off-season for most northern teams, which took him through the rest of the evening. At one point he heard Victor leave his room and return about half an hour later.


	43. Chapter 43

Yuuri awoke several times in the morning, but dozed back off. Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t have to get up to do any jobs at the commune. Maybe he really did need the rest, though he doubted it. When his thoughts alit on the jumble of events from yesterday, he cringed inwardly. What ought to have been a joyous reunion had been spoiled…just like the first night he’d thought he and Victor were going to spend together. The Institute – how tightly were their coils wound around everything; and how much could Yuuri trust Victor, now that he’d led the agents out here?

He put on clothes he’d bought the night before and knocked on Victor’s door, who called for him to come in. They exchanged small talk, and Victor said he’d been up for a while and already had breakfast. Yuuri noticed a couple of bottles of red wine on the nightstand, one empty with a glass next to it. He asked Victor what he wanted to do, and he said he wouldn’t mind spending the morning in his room, but he’d join Yuuri in his own room at one o’clock for some lunch if that was all right. Yuuri agreed and left.

When the door clicked shut, he slumped against the wall, his skin crawling as he fought off tears. Victor, who he’d missed and longed for all this time, despite his own worries and fears…in the room next door. Unreachable. They’d spent the evening apart, and now the morning too, apparently.

He sat down on his bed, pulling his backpack next to him, and took out the little silver-painted horseshoe, then scooted so that his back was against the headboard. He was going to force his mind to work through this maze and make sense of it, he swore silently as he fingered the charm.

It had been so tempting, in the shack when they were talking, to pull out his stun gun and use it on Victor. He knew now what a terrible mistake that would have been. But Crow had taunted him until he’d started to have an anxiety attack; he’d been expecting to die painfully at the agent’s hands, there being no distractions to use this time. He’d even been convinced briefly that Victor had engineered it all, as Crow had claimed. It made him feel sick and faint to recall it, and his hand closed around the horseshoe he was holding like a lifeline.

He also knew from experience, however, that Crow mixed lies with the truth, like any expert deceiver. Nothing he said ought to be accepted at face value. And shouldn’t it have been convincing enough, Yuuri thought, that Victor had showed up to save him? If Victor really were an agent himself, wouldn’t he just have let Crow finish the job? Unless Victor wanted to make him feel at ease, spend time with him, try to find out what he knew first…and then shrink back into himself, Yuuri finished the absurd thought as he recalled Victor’s muted responses since they’d been in the taxi on the way to the motel.

But of course, he’d had no time while they were in the shack to calm down and think straight. Adrenaline and fear made a powerful potion, he knew. Then, from his own lips: _You’re the person I’ve been contacting with ESP. And you’re Victor_. Statements of fact. And yet they had softened his heart, despite the fear raging through him. Then he’d taken Victor’s hand and led him out of the shack. A simple act that had meant so much, though Victor had probably not realized; a gesture of trust which indicated that Yuuri was going to find the courage to stay with him this time, instead of running away.    

Things were also going to change between them now that Victor had been awakened to having ESP himself…weren’t they? Crow’s claim that Victor had simply been concealing it all along…that was almost laughable bunkum. As if Victor wouldn’t have let his guard down enough for one second to enable Yuuri to detect him, like static in the background. He could still sense it now, even though they were in separate rooms. It was already beginning to feel like a comfort of a kind. And besides, he didn’t think Crow knew about that night Victor had first been able to use ESP. No one could fake that kind of terror. It had been real and visceral. Yuuri would be forever thankful that Victor had somehow been able to find him, so that he could help when he’d needed it most.

So…why the separate rooms? Well, he supposed it made sense, given the circumstances. They’d almost be getting to know each other again now, in some ways. Though Victor hadn’t even tried to discuss it beforehand. And yet, maybe it was a good sign. If Victor were really an agent, trying to win back his trust just so he could turn him over to the Institute, surely the first thing he’d be likely to do was try to get Yuuri into his bed, plying him with flattery and questions.

_That’s not who Victor is at all. I can’t believe I’d ever think something like that._

He’d said so many heartfelt things the day before. _The happiest days of my life were when we were together._ Not as a point of emphasis, but almost as an aside, a fact that could be called to mind easily and briefly mentioned when needed. Yuuri had been touched by that, and wasn’t going to forget it. Then there were his comments about dedicating his life to helping people, not hurting them – almost at the same time as throwing out the idea that he should have killed Crow when he had the chance, because protecting Yuuri was even more important than protecting himself. Along with the evidence Yuuri had weighed up in his shack before deciding to travel back to Boston, it all pointed not to some master agent…but to a complex, wonderful man who was being absolutely truthful. Maybe he’d held some of those important truths back initially, and maybe that hadn’t been wise or helpful…but deliberately lying? Yuuri didn’t think so.

He began to finger the horseshoe again as he searched through his feelings. Something was still bothering him. A lot. He stared at the delicate embossed curlicue patterns where the ceiling met the tops of the walls. Then his gaze wandered to the window, where a placid ocean hazily met a blue sky dusted with cirrus clouds. He didn’t know how much time it took to finally tease it out, but eventually he decided he understood what the problem was. And though he figured he wasn’t any more of an expert on relationships now than he had been in Boston, he felt sure he had to talk to Victor about it, if they were to have any hope of mending things between them.

He sighed and put the horseshoe back in the pocket of his backpack. How could it feel more daunting, sometimes, to have a conversation with someone you loved than it did to have someone point a gun at you?

***

“I guess it must’ve snowed in Boston by now,” Yuuri said.

They were walking side by side along the beach, wearing their backpacks, which they’d agreed to carry everywhere in case of trouble. They’d eaten a quick lunch in Yuuri’s room – the first food Yuuri had had all day, but also the first thing he’d felt up to eating; and then he suggested they come out here and have a look around. The beach was a serene ocher stretch of curving sand fringed with shingle of a matching hue that became coarser further away from the lapping waves, until it blended into undulating dunes and tufts of scrub. Victor was wearing black slacks and a pink long-sleeved button-down shirt, the color mirroring his cheekbones and lips. He was just as beautiful as Yuuri remembered, though his face was troubled, and more often than not he stared down at the sand while they strolled.

“No snow yet,” he answered Yuuri’s question. “Though it’s a lot colder there. You picked a nice place to come.”

“Yeah, wicked swit,” Yuuri couldn’t help saying sarcastically.

“Sorry,” Victor muttered.

“Me too,” Yuuri hastened to add.

They walked a little further in silence. There was hardly anyone around. A jogger; a man minding a toddler who had a bucket and spade.

“This reminds me of that time we went to the beach near your apartment,” Victor said. “You know, the sand sculpture competition we saw?”

Realization dawned in Yuuri’s eyes. “Yeah. And that storm came. You were afraid it was going to wash the sculptures away.”

“You said that if you get rid of what’s gone before, you’ve got the opportunity to put something better in its place.”

Yuuri paused. “I…I said that?” He thought. “I did, didn’t I?” He felt a flush of pleasure that Victor remembered.

“I think we might end up putting it to the test.”

Yuuri’s heart gave a lurch as he considered, and decided he had to agree. But he wasn’t sure he was ready to pursue that particular topic yet. Instead he said, “I guess I don’t _have_ an apartment there anymore. I just hope my landlady did something more useful with my old clothes than they did at the commune.”

“You don’t need to worry. Phichit and I arranged for your things to go into storage.”

“You did?” Yuuri looked at him.

“You’re surprised?” He paused. “We hoped you’d be coming back.”

“I…I wanted to, though…I couldn’t see how, not permanently. Well anyway, thank you.”

“I wonder if Chris is likely to do the same for me. I’m not even sure if there’s any way I can ask him.” Almost everything he said at the moment had a strange flat quality. He looked out to sea.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said quietly.

Victor shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes drifting back down to the sand, which he kicked at a little as he walked.

“Look,” Yuuri said, spotting a white pavilion a little further down the beach with some empty circular boats tethered to it. “Should we see if we can have a ride in one?”

“Hm? Oh…yeah, that looks like fun.”

When they arrived at the pavilion, they discovered it took cash, and Yuuri paid for an hour on a boat, which dropped its tether. It was little more than a white saucer with a black bench that circled the diameter of the boat, and a control panel in the middle that a passenger could pull toward them for manual or automatic control.

“Maybe we could check out that island over there?” Yuuri asked, pointing to a lump of rock in the distance where gulls were circling.

“Sure.”

Yuuri touched a map on the screen and selected the island icon. He still wasn’t used to how well most places in this country accommodated people without a chip; usually you would just be expected to bring the map up in your display field, rather than using a console like this. After their destination was set, he sat back and felt the breeze lift his bangs as they moved at a gentle pace. Victor was sitting next to him, but not close enough to touch. His eyes, like reflections of the sky, were unfathomable.

 _[I wish I could…]_ Yuuri started to think, then stopped himself from going any further; there was already the light of realization in Victor’s eyes that he’d sent something to him. It wouldn’t be appropriate, not here and now. Yuuri was still not used to the idea that when he was with someone else with ESP, his thoughts were not always private; though Rahul had reminded him of it from time to time, sometimes with a hearty laugh.

When they neared the island, it turned out to be a rocky gray outcrop with tall cliffs circled by white-winged gulls and delicate-looking white and brown shore birds. Victor spotted a colony of sea lions basking on a stretch of flat land below the cliffs, and Yuuri gasped. There must have been dozens of them. He could just make out their barks and odd groaning and growling noises on the breeze.

“That’s amazing,” he whispered. When he turned to look at Victor, there was a small smile on his face, and this time it lit his eyes.

They sat and watched, then allowed the boat to drift. Finally Yuuri broke the silence. “Victor, do you mind if we talk for a while, before we go back to shore?”

“OK.” He looked warily at him.

Suddenly he wasn’t sure where to start. Or if this was a good idea at all. He’d been painfully aware of Victor’s mood, and he couldn’t kid himself that what he was going to say was likely to improve it. But with everything that had suddenly been landed on Victor’s shoulders, Yuuri couldn’t see that there _would_ be a better time than now. He was seized with a ridiculous urge to jump over the side of the boat and swim away.

 “Yuuri?” Victor prompted him.

“Yeah. Um…” He looked forward for a moment, then turned toward Victor. “I want you to know that I believe you’ve been truthful about everything. I…despite what I said yesterday, I don’t believe you’re an agent, or that you deliberately brought them here with you.”

Victor huffed a little laugh. “That’s good.”

“I was…scared. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve had some time to think about it since then, and…yeah.”

“I know.”

“This, um…isn’t easy.”

Victor gave him a warm grin. “Sounds like you’re doing OK.”

Yuuri pushed himself to continue. “I’m sorry I doubted you. But…you weren’t an easy person to talk to about some things, Victor.” He watched in consternation as an expression of surprise spread across Victor’s face. “Like the ESP, at first. You assumed right away that I was sick. I mean, it felt like you were being sympathetic and supportive, which honestly meant a lot. But at the same time, I knew you didn’t believe me; you didn’t trust what I was saying. Just like the string of doctors and psychiatrists when I was young, my family…everybody else, basically.”

Victor began a reply, but Yuuri raised a hand and carried on, part of him wondering if _Victor_ would end up throwing him overboard before long. “I think I can maybe understand why you acted the way you did, given what happened to your sister, and how what I told you reminded you of that. And your whole involvement with the Institute, which I didn’t know about at the time. But I would’ve liked to think our relationship counted for more; that you might’ve tried to be more open-minded.”

He paused for a moment. Victor was motionless, his face grave. Yuuri wasn’t sure what effect his words were having, but he knew he needed to finish. “Then I tried to tell you about the Orphic egg and the people with ESP disappearing, and you wouldn’t listen. You still didn’t completely believe me until you ran into your agent friend, who pulled a gun on you. I – I’m still angry that it took _that_ before you were convinced.” He looked down and played with his fingers. “I’m not trying to lash out at you or anything. I…” He made himself look back up and meet Victor’s eyes, and he was sure he saw hurt in their depths. “I just wanted to be honest and try to make you understand, because it’s just taking some time, that’s all.” He fell silent, his heart hammering.

After a long minute, during which Victor seemed to be thinking, he said, his words sounding carefully measured, “I’m really sorry, Yuuri. And it’s good to know you believe I’ve been telling the truth. That’s been worrying me, after yesterday; though…I thought, with time, I’d convince you anyway with my charming personality.” He managed a little grin.

Yuuri returned it. “No, I don’t want your _charm_ , Victor. That wouldn’t convince me of anything, because I’m not sure how sincere it ever is. Just…just you, as you are. That’s what convinced me.”

Victor blinked and stared, taking this in. “OK,” he finally said, as if storing this to be thought about later. Then his expression was somber once more. “Though I guess I’ve been angry too, if that’s what we’re talking about.”

The words stabbed through Yuuri’s chest, and his lips parted as his chin dropped. But he listened. It was only fair – and no doubt important.

“That you thought I’d actually do the things you kept accusing me of,” Victor continued, his voice quiet but firm. “I would’ve liked to think our relationship counted for more, too. That last day you came to MIT – did you even plan to talk to me at all, or was it just luck we bumped into each other? – and then disappeared before we had a chance to try to work anything out…”

Yuuri began to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. He wasn’t even sure Victor wanted an answer to that question. But oh god, when he put it like this…Of course he’d felt bad when he’d imagined Victor doing those things. He _hadn’t_ done them. But Yuuri hadn’t trusted him. A hand fluttered up to his mouth. “I should’ve tried to talk to you instead of running away,” he whispered against it. It seemed like the most obvious thing in the world, now.

“That might’ve helped,” Victor conceded, and sighed. “I was so worried about you.” His voice quietened to a notch above the breeze. “I missed you so much. But…I know you were frightened. A-And you’re right, I wasn’t listening like I should’ve been, either, and there were things I should’ve told you sooner.” He paused. “You’ve apologized now, too. So…how do we make things better?”

Yuuri gazed at him, feeling the gentle bobbing of the boat on the waves. The sun on their faces. The ever-present static of Victor’s presence wrapping around him. Tried to think how to answer such a weighted question. Finally, he simply did the best he could. “We’ve been through a lot in a short time. And we’ve got some big decisions to make, eventually. How about…we just take our time, and get used to being together again? Maybe…try some ESP stuff when we feel up to it?”

Victor considered, then nodded. “Sure. Let’s do that.”   

***

Over the next couple of days, however, they did little. Victor seemed to be present in body but not so much in spirit. His eyes often had a distant look; haunted, even. Yet he didn’t show any inclination to talk about what was on his mind. Yuuri persuaded him to walk along the beach together a few times, and go back to a store for food and supplies; though he knew that Victor was making some trips by himself, because he’d seen more empty wine bottles in his room, and one of vodka that was gradually going the same way. It made something lodge and ache in his abdomen, but he said nothing about it. Once he suggested that Victor show him what he’d learned how to do with a map, but he just said he’d be glad to another time; he wasn’t in the mood to try to concentrate just then. Yuuri said maybe they ought to go to a different motel soon, as it probably wasn’t a good idea to stay in one place for too long. Victor didn’t seem to care.

One night Yuuri lay in his bed staring at the distant city lights outside his window, like red and orange pinpricks strung along the dark body of the ocean. The aimlessness of the hours and minutes was taking a toll on him, and he thought the same might be the case for Victor too, who was spending a lot of time in his room, no doubt mulling over what he’d unexpectedly lost by coming here. Whether or not it was helping, Yuuri couldn’t be sure; but the bottles of wine and vodka indicated that the answer was probably negative. Although it was painful, he remembered how he had felt after leaving Boston. Being plunged into a whole new world, one he’d never really felt he belonged to, with train hopping and then the commune. He’d been on his own, too, until he’d met the Patels. Victor had him now, of course, but…he couldn’t deny that things between them were still problematic. Maybe, Yuuri thought, he was just adding to Victor’s worries, instead of being a source of support; and that cut him deeply. It also didn’t help that they both had similar problems now – ones that Yuuri wasn’t any closer to solving, after staring them in the face for weeks.

He wished they could just be in each other’s arms again. How much better this would feel, lying here, with Victor beside him. Sure, he desired Victor as much as ever, but it wasn’t really about that, so much as giving comfort to each other and sharing a connection.

A connection…He reached out with his mind and felt Victor’s presence. Was tempted to try to initiate something via ESP. What would that be like, now that they were in close proximity? He remembered how his memory of the image Victor had sent him of the bridge over the river had come into focus when Victor himself had been nearby. What else would they be able to do?

Crow’s words in his apartment suddenly came back to him: _Would you like to find out what sex is like when we’re both doing this? It will blow your mind._ He let out a breath and felt his cock twitch at the thought of it. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to explore this with Victor. Research the possibilities. Again and again.

Even though he hadn’t been able to contact any presences himself, maybe it would be different if one of them was in the next room. He’d never tried it with Rahul. But…no. How could he touch Victor in that way when they were hardly touching physically? He would never do to Victor what Crow had done to him – planting or stoking passions that were not his own. Maybe…maybe Victor wasn’t ready to communicate as Velvet at all, just yet, in light of everything that had happened. Yuuri didn’t want to make any attempts until he felt sure that Victor would be comfortable with it.

At some point he must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing he knew, it was morning. The motel offered a simple breakfast that included things like eggs and sausages and fruit, which Yuuri could eat; and though it meant always making sure the security cameras remained in a permanently disabled state, he was glad of a hot meal once in a while. He didn’t see Victor in the breakfast room today, but then he never did. He either got up earlier than Yuuri, ate in his room…or perhaps wasn’t eating at all.

When Yuuri returned, he knocked on the door adjoining their rooms, but received no answer. He watched some TV for an hour or so, then tried again, and thought he heard a faint groan. Knocking harder, he called through, asking Victor if he could come in. Finally he thought he heard what might have been an affirmative response; he was not going to be picky, because he’d started to worry. He pulled the door open and walked through.

Victor was sitting at the desk in his room, his elbows resting on the surface, head in his hands, bangs flopped over his fingers. There was an embarrassed air to the way he sat and slowly moved, as if he didn’t want Yuuri to see him. The vodka bottle, mostly empty now, sat nearby, with a little half-full glass next to it.

“Shit,” Yuuri said quietly as he took everything in. “Are you…are you drunk, Victor?”

“No. Of course not. Well, maybe a little,” came Victor’s low, slurred voice from under his hands and hair.

“At…” Yuuri checked his watch. “…half past ten in the morning?”

Victor finally looked blearily at him, his face flushed, eyes bright. “More fun with two,” he said. Yuuri couldn’t work out if he was being serious.

“No, I…not right now, no. It doesn’t look much fun for you, either.”

Victor glanced down and muttered something; slurred English or Russian, Yuuri couldn’t tell. He ran a hand distractedly through his hair and then turned to gaze at the window, in the opposite direction from where Yuuri stood. Milky sunlight filtered through the net curtains, a blue line of ocean stretching outside.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri thought he deciphered, though Victor’s voice was quiet and he was still turned away. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

Yuuri folded his arms across his chest and swallowed, wondering what to do. “You’ve been in your room a lot, not wanting to talk,” he said eventually. “I…please, I just want to understand. Is it because of what happened?” He thought he ought to qualify the vague remark. “I mean – ”

But Victor seemed to comprehend. “Yes, of course it is,” he mumbled, his words running together. He tried to put his head back in his hands and missed. Yuuri looked on in alarm. Victor’s face was resting against the desk – had he passed out?

“Victor.” Yuuri hustled over, hearing more unintelligible mumbling as he touched a cheek. An eye half-opened and peered at him. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“That’s the…best…idea you’ve had yet,” Victor said with bleary brightness as he tried to stand, and Yuuri slid an arm underneath his to support him as they crossed the room. “You come, too.”

Yuuri huffed. “That’s _not_ a good idea.”

Victor fell more than sat on the edge of the bed, then watched placidly as Yuuri removed his shoes and socks for him. He had almost no experience with taking care of someone who was drunk, though he supposed Phichit might have qualified once or twice. He didn’t want to give Victor the wrong impression by stripping him, but he thought he ought to help him out of his long-sleeved T-shirt at least; and once Victor worked out what he was doing, he raised his arms like a child.

“My turn, then yours,” he slurred in a hopeful tone.

 _God, Victor, you can make things so difficult sometimes._ Once Victor’s shirt was off, Yuuri folded it and placed it on top of his backpack on the floor next to his bed. “Get under the covers and get some rest, if you can.” He laid a palm on his chest and pushed gently, willing Victor to ease back until he was lying down, trying not to stare at muscles that were as toned as ever. _Totally inappropriate time for this,_ he told himself.

 _“Yuuuuuri,”_ Victor breathed, extending the sound the way he knew Yuuri loved, and slapping his palm on top of Yuuri’s own, then pressing it. “Come here. I’ll be gentle. Or you can be gentle. Or…or not.” He tried for a smile but couldn’t seem to decide how to work his lips for the right effect. Then he suddenly pulled back and scooted until he was lounging with a pillow against the small of his back, giving Yuuri a come-hither look.

Yuuri was still reeling from how the embarrassed, apologetic man he’d walked in on a few minutes before had turned into this playful seducer, but it hadn’t done anything to lessen his concern about the situation. Taking advantage of Victor’s mostly horizontal position, he quickly pulled the bedcovers back and then over him. Victor gave him a startled, somewhat disappointed look, though he also seemed to be wondering where he actually was as well, if his blank glances around the room were any indication.

Feeling more awkward by the moment, Yuuri tucked the covers up to Victor’s chest, then hovered, instinctively reaching out a hand to smooth Victor’s bangs out of his eye. “Come see me when you’re sober and feeling better,” he said. “We’ll talk.” Hesitating again, he finally bent over to kiss Victor’s clammy forehead. Victor had shut his eyes and Yuuri wasn’t sure if it registered at all, but perhaps it was better that it didn’t. On his way out of the room, he picked up the vodka and a bottle of wine, as yet unopened, and took them with him.


	44. Chapter 44

Yuuri didn’t feel like watching more TV, but he didn’t want to leave the motel either, not when Victor was in that state and potentially in need of him. Though for what, he wasn’t sure. What he needed most was probably just time to sleep it off.

He sat on his bed and looked out the window, suddenly realizing how alone he felt. He no longer had Velvet to contact, because Velvet was Victor, and Victor was drunk and bogged down with his own problems. And since the day they’d left the commune together, they’d been having to repair their relationship, which made it difficult to offer each other much support.

Out of nowhere, he suddenly felt the urge to eat something sweet and rich, and ran a despairing hand over his face. Jesus, that was the last thing he fucking needed – _either_ of them needed. But hadn’t he been reminded all too recently that boredom and loneliness were a potent recipe for this? The longer those went on, the worse it would become. He’d suggested to Victor that they get used to being together again, and work on the ESP. But it didn’t feel like they’d made much progress with the former, and none at all with the latter.

Sighing, Yuuri stood, peeked through the door to Victor’s room and saw that he seemed to be asleep, then went out to the nearest grocery to buy healthy foods that he liked, determined to treat himself to those instead of things he shouldn’t eat. He also bought a pop science magazine and a newspaper, surprised to find printed material so easily available here. Maybe they would help to pass the time.

When he got back to his room, he lay down on his bed and tried to do an ESP session with the other presences he knew, or open himself to new ones, but either no one was around or he wasn’t concentrating very well. He tried again to contact Rahul specifically, even though it never worked, and it didn’t this time either. Eventually he gave in, sat up, and turned the TV on. He found an old Cary Grant film and ate lunch as he watched. It felt like a comfort, in a way; Yuuri had always thought he was cute, and had seen all of his films when he was younger. Then he read the magazine, fetched a bucketful of ice, tried the ESP again to no avail, and wondered what people who stayed in motels all day did. Though the answer, he supposed, was obvious. They either attended conferences or had sex in their rooms, sometimes both. For him, the quiet, bland cheerlessness was fast becoming oppressive.

He considered checking on Victor again several times, but thought he was likely to feel like hell when he woke up, and didn’t want to intrude and embarrass him further. Eventually, toward evening, there was a soft knock at the adjoining door, and then Victor opened it, looking pale and disheveled. Yuuri was propped up against the headboard of his bed, watching a baseball game that had started half an hour ago. He made to get up, but Victor waved a weak hand, leaning against the doorframe.

“I don’t feel too good,” he commented in a thin voice.

“I guess you wouldn’t.” Yuuri paused. “You can come in if you want. You don’t have to stand there.”

“I’m not sure I can move.” He lingered, ghost-like.

“Come on in,” Yuuri said in what he hoped was an inviting tone. “I’m just watching a baseball game, but you can too, if you want. Or we could do something else – ”

“That sounds about as demanding as I can cope with right now, I think. Thank you.” He walked in quietly and sank into the easy chair in the corner of the room, facing the TV.

Yuuri just stared for a moment, struck by the oddness of a sad-looking Victor all the way over there, watching something he probably wasn’t interested in just because he didn’t want to be in his room by himself. Trying to be helpful, however, he told him a little about the teams, and what had happened in the game so far, which wasn’t much. He’d never gotten a good idea of how far Victor’s understanding of the rules of the game went; whether it included things like double plays and base steals, or if he still wasn’t sure what balls and strikes were or how many outs each inning had. Not, he supposed, that it actually mattered right now anyway. He noticed an increasingly lost look in Victor’s eyes, and how his face gradually took on a disturbing green hue, until he jumped to his feet and dashed to the bathroom to be sick.

When he returned to the room and sat back down in the chair, looking sheepish, Yuuri got up, fetched some ibuprofen from his backpack and a glass of ice water, and took them to him. Victor quietly accepted it all, moving as if in slow motion; and Yuuri returned to his position on the bed, wondering how much Victor had drunk that morning.

“There’s room here, if you feel up to it,” Yuuri said in a sudden moment of impetuousness, moving over and patting a space on the bed next to him. “I know it’d be a little cramped, but…” 

Victor finished his water and looked, then came to join him. They sat shoulder to shoulder; and though it was a simple thing to do, hardly intimate, Yuuri felt a ripple of relief pass through him. Just the warmth of Victor’s body like this was blissfully welcome after all the time they’d been apart. He didn’t want to move; and he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but the tension seemed to have drained out of Victor, and he looked more at peace than he had since he’d turned up at the barn. They chatted about the baseball as they watched. When it was over, a detective drama came on, and Yuuri was surprised at how much fun he had as they exchanged theories about whodunit as the plot progressed, and comments about how niff or sparky the good guys were at different points. Victor ended up guessing the plot twist at the end, identifying the correct suspect.

“I would’ve made a good detective,” he said proudly as the credits rolled.

“You were just lucky.”

“I was not,” Victor replied in a mock affronted tone. “I had it all worked out.”

“So did I. The people who wrote the show just decided to take it in your direction, that’s all.”

“Those are the words of a sore loser, is what I say.”

Yuuri raised his eyebrows and looked at him. “Play Brainquake with me and I’ll make you eat those words.” But his voice trailed off as he thought about the last time he’d played it, with Crow. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to play it again, in truth.

There had been a mischievous sparkle in Victor’s eyes, but now they were contemplative. Yuuri caught a thread of meaning from the ether: Victor knew he’d been thinking about the last time he’d played, and how that had been frightening rather than fun.

 _[Yes,]_ he answered. The blue eyes gazed into his own. He pushed a little further to see what Victor would let him do. _[You seem to be feeling better.]_

A look of startled amazement. And an affirmative. This had been just what he’d needed, Victor sent. He was sorry; presumably, Yuuri thought, for earlier, though he didn’t know how much Victor remembered.

Warm, soft lips on his forehead, Victor thought, with a smile in his eyes.

Oh. He _did_ know, then.

Victor wanted to return the favor but was in a rather repulsive state just now.

_[You? Never.]_

Victor laughed aloud. _[I’m hungry,]_ he sent. He…hadn’t eaten all day?

“Let’s fix that, then,” Yuuri said, his voice sounding unnaturally loud after their silent conversation. Victor grinned and nodded.

After a late dinner, Victor said he ought to go back to his room and get himself sorted out. Yuuri already felt the loss, wanting his body next to his again, or at least his company through the rest of the evening. All night too, for that matter; but that was jumping the gun.

“Victor, I’d like to talk to you tomorrow – sober and well,” he said as Victor opened the door between their rooms.

“That sounds ominous,” Victor said with a light laugh.

“I don’t mean it to be.”

“OK.”

“And…promise me, please, that you won’t go out and buy more alcohol tonight.”

Victor held his gaze, and then he nodded. “I promise.”

***

They’d agreed to meet the next morning for breakfast, and then took another stroll along the beach, backpacks in tow as always. It felt like it was going to be a hot day; though whenever Yuuri tested the water, it felt on the cool side. He probably could have bought himself a swimsuit and gone out in it for a while just the same, but the mood hadn’t struck him.

He’d noticed Victor making more of an effort to talk with him, and his mood seemed a little brighter. Though if that was only due to the time they’d shared the previous evening, Yuuri figured it was unlikely to last before it faded and Victor felt drawn to the bottle again. He didn’t have firsthand experience of alcohol problems, but he and substance abuse – in his case, the edible kind – were old sparring partners all the same.

A cluster of sailboats was already out on the waters, the white triangles like discarded pieces of origami bobbing in the blue waters. It reminded Yuuri of the Charles River. He’d never been on a sailboat, he thought idly. Then he looked at Victor, half-mesmerized by how the fine pale golden hairs hanging over his left eye were gently lifted by the breeze.

“You seem better this morning,” Yuuri said, reaching awkwardly for a way into the conversation he wanted to have.

“I stayed off the vodka, like I promised. And the wine.” He flicked a glance at Yuuri. “Did you? You took the rest.” His voice was gentle rather than accusing.

“Sure. Though that vodka is so strong, we ought to keep it for emergencies as a disinfectant.”

“That just means it’s good stuff.”

_I don’t think so._

“So disapproving,” Victor muttered quietly, with a shaky little laugh, as he looked down at the sand.

Yuuri hadn’t meant to share his thoughts. Sometimes, with Victor, it just seemed as natural as breathing. He was never entirely sure how much of the essence of them Victor captured, especially being new to this as he was; but when it happened, his comments were often disconcertingly incisive.

He took a deep breath. “I’ve been trying to understand how it must feel for you right now – ”

Victor interrupted with an uncharacteristically cynical laugh as he looked out to sea. “ _I_ don’t even know how I feel. Or what I think. Or anything, really. Yuuri, my whole life’s been turned upside down.”

“Mine was too,” Yuuri said quietly. “It still is.”

“I…” Victor looked at him. “Yes, we…we’re both in similar situations now, aren’t we.”

Dealing with the shock of realization as Victor was, Yuuri supposed he could understand why he sounded surprised at this, even though he shouldn’t have been. “Living without a chip, yeah. I don’t know how long you did that before you came here, but it isn’t easy in the U.S. Losing my job – well I guess you can imagine how I felt about that. Losing contact with the people I cared about. I guess I adjusted to things as well as I could, though I never saw myself staying here permanently. When I left Boston, I just knew I needed to go someplace far away, and safe, and then I figured I could think things out. Well I’ve had time to do a lot of thinking, but I can’t say I’ve found any good answers yet.”

He paused; Victor was quiet, but it seemed he was taking in his words and processing them. It was time, Yuuri decided, to say something brave that he’d been planning, though it filled him with the same sensation he’d had in the boat when he imagined jumping overboard. “Victor…drinking like you have been isn’t a good answer, is it? You…know that, don’t you?”

Victor gave a small sigh and slowed his pace, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. “Yes, I know.” There was a stretch of silence; Yuuri waited. “I, um…” He bit his lip; then Yuuri was surprised to see it quiver. “I just got so…upset…thinking about it all.” He took a quick breath – and his frame shook with sobs.

Alarmed, Yuuri took Victor’s hand, leading him to a little copse of trees set back from the water where they were unlikely to be easily seen or disturbed, and they sat down next to each other on the sandy ground. Victor’s tears still flowed down his cheeks; but when Yuuri again clasped his hand, he squeezed back.

“I have no home to go back to,” Victor said in one heaved exhalation, looking down at his lap. “Cambridge…New York…St. Petersburg…I don’t even know when – _if_ – I’ll be able to see my family again. My father, Anna, Makkachin…” He lost himself in tears again.

Yuuri felt like a washcloth being wrung. He wanted to be able to reach into Victor and pull out all the pain and grief. How useless was it that he had no answers himself? All he could think in response was, _I know._ Though he hadn’t had to face the horror of losing family like Victor had; his own had been lost to him many years ago.

Victor slanted a glance at him and squeezed his hand again. “I…can’t go back to the jobs I was doing…I can’t contact anyone…”

The agony in his voice pierced Yuuri’s heart, and a tear slid down his own cheek. He told himself that wasn’t what Victor needed, and knew he had to toe a line between detached attentiveness and drowning in a whirlpool of desperation.

“People I trusted for years…I thought they were my friends…I can’t believe I was so _blind._ ”

“I made mistakes too,” Yuuri said, wondering how to join what had become Victor’s monologue as he listed all the troubles that had been weighing him down, every one of which would present a challenge in itself. “If I hadn’t panicked like I did…maybe I would’ve found ways to deal with things that didn’t involve giving away what I knew over my chip. But instead, I just imploded. I ran away from everything that meant anything to me. I should’ve…well, I don’t know…”

Victor sniffled and looked up. “Come to me?”

Yuuri gave a small sad sigh. “I didn’t see how I could. You didn’t believe me, Victor; you thought I was sick.”

After a pause, Victor said, “I just wish you’d told me where you were.”

“I couldn’t. You were chipped. They’d have found out that way. They can trace calls.” _We’ve been over this._ But Victor was clearly not in a position to think very rationally at the moment, and he simply nodded. Of course he’d wanted to know where Yuuri had gone. “Besides,” he added gently, “what would you have said that you hadn’t said already? Your video messages proved that. But,” he hastened to add, “I saw your face, and how much you were hurting, and that made me want to go back and try to fix things somehow. At least get you to see the truth of the situation, if I could.”

Victor’s tears were drying in the warm breeze, and he wiped at the remnants on his face with his sleeve. Yuuri wasn’t sure how he’d succeeded in helping Victor to calm down, if he’d even done anything at all, but it was certainly a step up from declaring that his life was a catastrophe. For that matter, Yuuri knew how easy it would probably be to get pulled _down_ into that mire again himself, which made going through it with Victor difficult. But maybe they were making progress of a kind.

“I still can’t believe you were going to do that for me,” Victor said softly, looking at him.

“Believe it,” Yuuri said, meeting his eyes.

The edges of Victor’s mouth quirked up. “But…couldn’t you have found _some_ way of letting me know you were OK? I did think you were sick, Yuuri. The things I imagined happening to you – ”

Oh god. Yuuri didn’t want to speculate. “I’m really sorry. But at first I didn’t know if I could trust you. I know – we’ve talked about that, and I was a gonk. I found the trust I needed anyway; it just took time.”

Victor’s expression had softened. “You don’t think anymore that I’m trying to trap you.”

It was a request for reassurance, Yuuri supposed, even if it had been phrased as a statement; because he knew he’d already put him right on that score. “Of course not,” he said with a little laugh, looking down.

“Everything we had before, in Boston…and then our connection with the ESP…it’s all been special.”

Yuuri looked back up, his heart swelling. “Yeah, it has.”

A pause; then Victor said, “I’d really like to put my arm around your waist while we walk down the beach…Would that be OK?”

Yuuri couldn’t think of anything more perfect in that moment. He stood and smiled, holding his hand out to help Victor up. Then he shrugged off his backpack, looping the straps over one arm, and silently lifted his other away from his waist in invitation. Victor took his own backpack off and slipped his free hand around Yuuri, who did the same, so that they were walking side by side, arm in arm, back to the shore and along the waterline where the foaming waves lapped. To Yuuri, it was the same feeling as sitting next to each other on his bed the night before; warm and reassuring. Like this was where he belonged. It felt so good that he wanted to cry from sheer joy. Instead, he leaned his head in toward Victor’s shoulder, and felt Victor mirroring his action.

Yuuri felt no need to say anything for a while. There never seemed to be many people in this area, at least at this time of year, and the beach was a ribbon of gold shimmering under the clear sky. Palm trees swayed near small dunes out from the shore. Sunbeams were scattered into white shards that glinted on top of the dark shifting waters. Yuuri felt he could be lost in this all day; and in the feel of Victor’s hard, tight waist under his T-shirt, his warmth, the scent of him, mixed with the tang of salt in the air. But there was a little more yet to be said, and he wanted to say it while their last conversation, however painful, was still fresh. Maybe it would help. He could hope, at least.

“I thought you might be interested to hear about what it was like when I got to the commune,” Yuuri said as they continued to walk. “I mean, when I was like you are now, having to think about everything that had suddenly gone wrong. But if it’s too much, after – ”

“No,” Victor replied, looking at him, “it isn’t. I’d like you to tell me.”

“Well, I was by myself, obviously. With it being a commune, I guess I’d hoped that maybe I’d end up feeling part of the group somehow, but they didn’t seem to want to bother with that. So for a while, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I was living in that hut, too, which…OK, yeah, I was grateful for a place to stay. I think there’s a lot of demand here for places at these offline communities. But it wasn’t exactly cozy, and there wasn’t much to do. And I was absolutely _crushed_ about losing my job and career. Before you came to my office the first time, I think I was getting pretty jaded. You said I inspired you – it honestly floored me when you said so – but you inspired me, too. I really believed in the study we were doing together. I still think that way now; about research I’d like to do. That we could do as partners. I was loving it, Victor. I…I didn’t want to have to suddenly drop it all and leave it behind.”

“Me either,” Victor said softly.

Maybe because he’d already faced these particular demons, or perhaps because Victor was here now, holding him like this, the sharp edge of pain was no longer present while Yuuri revisited it all; and he was thankful. But what he’d decided to say next needed more courage to bring into the open. Well, if he was going to trust Victor, he might as well start putting that resolution into practice, he thought.

“This isn’t easy for me to admit…it’s really embarrassing, actually. I told you about how I used to be overweight, and how I used to comfort eat. I like to think I’ve gotten over that, mostly, or worked through it or whatever you want to call it. But I just felt…overwhelmed, living in that hut by myself. You know what they gave me to do as a job at first? I was making adobe bricks all day, out in the sun, with people who weren’t interested in being friendly. That was the highlight of each day, too, because there was nothing to do once it was over.”

“Oh Yuuri.” Victor gave his waist a squeeze. “It sounds awful. I can’t believe anyone would try to run a community like that.”

“I’m not sure they know a whole lot about what they’re doing. But anyway, yeah…I just felt eventually like I didn’t know how to cope anymore, so I started going into the town to get food. Chocolate, doughnuts, that kind of thing. It, um…got bad for a while there.”

Victor let out a long breath. “So how did you stop?”

I made some friends. An older man and his grandson; they were asylum seekers from Gujarat. Rahul, the grandfather – he didn’t speak much English, but he, um…” A smile brightened his face. “…he could use ESP, too.”

“Really?” Victor said, raising his eyebrows. “What was it like?”

Yuuri felt his heart give a happy flutter. “We’d sit in his hut for a long time and never speak a word out loud; we didn’t need to. It was…amazing.”

Victor gave a little laugh. “Wow.”

“Yeah, though they were transferred somewhere else several weeks ago; they’d gotten their request for asylum granted. I’ve…I’ve been trying to find Rahul – you know, with the ESP. But I can’t seem to do that with anybody.”

“You should keep trying. There must be a way. I think there must be ways to do a lot of things, if we could just figure them out.” He looked at Yuuri with a small, wistful grin. “Why don’t we start tonight? It’d…be good for me to have something like that to work on.”

“I’d love to,” Yuuri enthused.

They walked a little further, quietly, amid the cried of gulls and the rhythmic shushing of the waves. Eventually Victor said, “I’m glad you made some friends at the commune, for a while. They, uh…helped you with the eating?”

“Well, in the sense that I didn’t feel alone anymore. I visited Rahul a lot; he was just a nice person. He…shared food with me that he’d blessed on the little altar in his hut – something Hindus do; and he taught me some mantras – they’re calming, though I’m not sure yet how well they work. For me, anyway.”    

“So…was that what you set up on the table in your hut? An altar?”

Pink crept across Yuuri’s cheeks. “In a way, yeah. Possessions that meant something to me. Not that I had a lot to choose from, but…” He allowed his voice to trail off. Victor looked delighted for a moment. Of course he’d seen that picture of himself. Again. It seemed to be an endless source of embarrassment. Though…not so much now; nor the picture of Freddie, for that matter. Both had inspired him at different times for different reasons, and he felt no need to apologize for that. “We cooked together too, for the commune. Rahul helped me refine some of my Indian recipes.”

“I thought so. The spices – was that what you were doing when you sent the smell of them to me with the ESP?”

“Yeah. That’s one of the best things about cooking, I think, especially when you’ve got pungent ingredients. All the aromas.”

“I’d love to have you cook something like that for me again.”

“I’d love to do it.”

“I’d want you to teach me.”

“Sure.”

“And I could teach you how to make beef stroganoff and borscht.”

Yuuri laughed and squeezed Victor’s waist. “Sounds like a plan.” _If we even end up living someplace that has a kitchen,_ Yuuri thought. _Which seems like a luxury at the moment._

“I’d been wondering what you were doing to pass the time in that place.”

“That’s it, mainly. I went jogging and hiking, too; it’s beautiful around there. I also got to play a little baseball, which was fun.”

“Oh, so you play as well as watch it?”

“I’m not too bad, you know.”

Victor gave him a crooked smile. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to watch.”

“I didn’t mean I was ready to try out for the majors, exactly.”

“I bet you were sexy as hell, though.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh, feeling his cheeks turn scarlet. “Well, none of it really compared to being a neuroscientist, you know?”

“I think I can understand that,” Victor said with a sigh.

Soon they decided they’d better head back. Yuuri challenged Victor to a race along the beach, and they put their backpacks on and ran along the shoreline, their shoes digging into the soft west sand. Near the motel, Yuuri turned to see Victor several meters behind him, and slowed to a stop.

“You win,” Victor breathed, trotting over. “I haven’t been very kind to my system these past several days, I guess. I’m tired. But – I’ll insist on a rematch soon.”

“You’re on. Anytime, anywhere.”

“Promises, promises,” Victor said suggestively.

Yuuri just stared. If they both hadn’t already been struggling to get their breath back, he thought he might just have grabbed Victor and kissed him into that state. But then, they’d had some emotionally exhausting conversations, one only recently; and why risk rushing things when there was no need?

He shoved his hands idly in his pockets, suddenly remembering there was a weapon in each: Crow’s laser gun, and the stun gun he’d bought back in Boston. Victor, he knew, still carried the other laser gun that he’d damaged. It was as well to always be prepared to defend themselves and flee, and Yuuri still kept a wary eye out for possible trouble when they left the motel; but so far there had been no sign of pursuers. Still…

“It’s good to be careful,” Victor said as his breaths evened out, clearly having picked up on some of Yuuri’s thoughts. “Why don’t we check out of here tomorrow morning? Like you said, it’s probably best not to stay in one place for too long.” He paused. “Maybe it could be a way of saying we’re putting the worst behind us, too.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Though we ought to think about what to do in the long term, too. We can’t keep staying at motels forever – ”

“And we can’t go back to our old lives,” Yuuri finished, the words like splinters even now. “I know.”

“No. But we need some kind of purpose, I think.”

“We’ll work on the ESP tonight, if you want.”

“I’d like to take you out for a decent meal for once, too.”

“Oh…OK. That sounds nice.” Yuuri thought for a moment. “Before that, we should visit a Cloud café. See if we can find someplace to stay after tonight.”

Victor smiled. “I have some things to look forward to later, then. You know, I like how that feels.” 


	45. Chapter 45

Victor showered before they were ready to leave for the Cloud café, not because he needed to especially, but because it felt symbolic – like their decision to leave the motel the next day – of getting rid of the old and starting something new. He sat at the end of his bed now, in white jeans, black leather belt and sky-blue long-sleeved button-down shirt, combing his hair. If he’d understood the difference it would make to tell Yuuri about what had been bothering him…He could trace it back to his meandering thoughts in the taxi on the way here, as he’d seen everything he’d ever worked for or cared about come crashing down around him like a giant row of dominoes. How _could_ he talk to Yuuri about it? Victor had feared that bringing the subject up might be like ripping off a scab for him. Besides, things had been…complicated between them; though they felt less so now.

He was relieved Yuuri had wanted to listen, after all. Then when he’d mentioned his experiences at the commune, Victor could see he had been working through similar feelings himself. They both had been hurting, and had made mistakes. But they could also be stronger together now; or so Victor hoped. He wanted to try. For one thing, he was not going to buy more alcohol and bring it back to his room. Yuuri was right, just like Chris, though for some reason he always found it a hard lesson to learn – it only made things worse, no matter what illusory comforts it initially provided. And he was determined not to do that; not when he’d finally found Yuuri.

Yes, the atmosphere between them felt lighter now. Though what Yuuri had said about how Victor had compounded years’ worth of injuries by behaving like everyone else in his life ever had, not believing the ESP was real, had been heartbreaking. Phichit had done better. _If you want me to tell you that this phenomenon is definitely real, Victor, I honestly can’t,_ he’d said. _But it’s important to Yuuri, and I respect that._ And if he had never developed the ability himself, would he ever have gotten beyond the assumption that Yuuri was sick? He wanted to think the answer was yes, but in all honesty he didn’t know. And he was still at an utter loss to understand what had triggered it in him. Maybe it had been some rogue gene somewhere in his body, just waiting for the right time.

Once he was finished getting ready, he met Yuuri in the hall and they set off for town; Yuuri had been borrowing the motel’s guidebook and had looked up where the nearest Cloud café was. He took out the camera there before Victor even had a chance to ask about it, though he then confessed that he’d been feeling anxious because they might be expected to visit places like this, being unchipped, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Once they were settled at adjacent screens, they browsed motels together further to the north. Yuuri had a surprisingly unimaginative taste in places to stay, Victor thought. Maybe it was time to remedy that.

“Yuuri, look – how about here?”

Yuuri leaned over in his chair and viewed Victor’s screen. “ _Tree_ houses? What?”

“Doesn’t that sound like fun to you? I’ve never stayed in one, have you?”

“We’re not here for _fun_ ,” Yuuri said in a whisper.

“Why not? Is there some rule that says we have to stay in a gray cement block or something, just because we’re not here on vacation?”

Yuuri huffed a laugh and shook his head, looking back at the screen. “So if agents suddenly appeared, we’re going to trap ourselves beforehand with one way out – down the tree and into their hands?”

Victor stroked his chin. “Ah. Good point.”

“I think you’d better keep looking.”

So Victor did. He found charming wooden huts on little islands on lakes and in the ocean. Entire complexes _under_ water. Even places on mountaintops, reached by hovercraft, though those were on the expensive side. Yuuri kept raising an eyebrow when he looked over at his screen. Well all right, he knew he was being a little frivolous. But on a more serious note, he knew that staying somewhere interesting would help keep his mind from gravitating back to his problems, and that was something he needed until they could work out what to do.

“How about this?” he said. “It’s like the tree houses, only it’s on the ground.”

“In other words, wooden huts,” Yuuri said, looking again.

“Comfortable ones, though. Each has everything you’d want – refrigerator, sink, bathroom. Outside is a beautiful pine forest – can you imagine the smell? It’s not considered part of the San Diego area, but there’s a town nearby where we could get supplies.”

“What are the prices like?”

“Not too bad. It’s not luxury living. Just…nice, don’t you think?”

“Do they have any vacancies?”

“It looks like they’re usually pretty busy,” Victor said as he scanned the screen, “but it says here there are some. Though we can’t book over the Cloud if we’re going to be paying in cash.”

“So we turn up and take pot luck.”

“Well…”

Yuuri sat back in his chair, then sighed. “All right, sure, let’s try.” He looked like he wanted to say more, and Victor waited. “As far as room arrangements go…would you like to share, each of us with our own bed? Um, I mean, since we’re spending a lot of time together anyway – ”

“Yes, I’d like that.” There would be nothing stopping them from shoving the beds together, of course, if…maybe Yuuri felt the same…or maybe, Victor told himself, he was just thinking with his dick again. For the time being, it already felt so incredibly good to know that Yuuri trusted him and wanted to be with him. All those hours alone in his motel room, his only comfort the bottle on the table next to him…they would not exactly turn out to be fond memories.

“Have you printed out a map with directions for how to get there?” Yuuri asked, breaking his reverie.

“Oh…no. Here, just give me a minute.”

After he did this, they spent some time reading scientific journals. It was Yuuri’s idea to do so first, saying he still enjoyed it, and it helped him not to lose all hope that he could work as a scientist again. Victor found that the pain for himself was fresh and raw, emphasizing what he ought to have been doing if he were back in Cambridge. But paradoxically, it was also a comfort in a way. He didn’t want to let go any more than Yuuri did.

“Should we think about dinner?” he eventually asked as the sun set and the evening advanced. “I’ll even take out a camera or two. I’m sure they’ll love it – they always do, don’t they?”

Yuuri snickered, seemingly despite himself. “Yeah, OK.”

“What kind of food have you missed the most? Just name it.”

“Well, all kinds. But…I love Thai, and I haven’t had it in ages. Phichit used to cook some simple things for me when we were roommates, but…”

“Great. Let’s see if there’s a restaurant near here, then.”

An hour later, Victor was working his way through crispy duck in satay sauce, and Yuuri was spooning red chicken curry, having insisted to a disbelieving waiter that he didn’t want rice with it. The aromas of lemongrass, galangal, coconut and basil intermingled like a wonderful perfume.

Victor had noted some odd sensations when their appetizers of eggrolls and fishcakes had arrived, and they could not be attributed to the delicious food. Nor, he thought, were they down to his growing feelings of outrage at the way Yuuri had been treated at the commune. He’d asked him if he wanted to tell him more about his life there, and he had been doing so in bits and pieces throughout dinner, though understandably he preferred to focus on things he’d gotten some enjoyment from, like walks on Palomar Mountain and a Hindu festival he’d celebrated with his Gujarati friends. And…he’d said something about being annoyed by requests for casual sex. He’d emphasized the annoyance. Victor wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d decided to indulge, given the circumstances; but he was glad he hadn’t, just the same. What a place. He wondered if other offline communities here were similar, or if there might be more to choose from between them.

But no, none of those things had sent small waves of pleasure through him when Yuuri took the first bite of something that tasted nice, even if Victor hadn’t been watching him at the time. When there was no food in his mouth, he would get such a strong idea of coconut or spicy heat that it was almost as if he were tasting it himself. He could swear when he looked at Yuuri in confusion at one point immediately afterward, that he could hear a chuckle in his head. There was a small, sly grin on his face as he looked down at the remnants of his dinner, his brown bangs flopping endearingly down over his forehead.

 _[You’re teasing me,]_ he sent, proud of what he seemed to be learning about how to do this and get his meaning across. It was easier each time he practiced.

Yuuri looked up at him, and the grin lost its slyness, becoming warm and genuine. _[I’m sharing with you. I thought you’d like it.]_

 _Sharing,_ Victor mused. _I can do that, too._ He stared at Yuuri for a moment, thinking about how much he wanted him; how he ached to hold and kiss him and press against him. It felt like his chest was constricting with the sudden surge of desire. _[Please don’t stop,]_ he sent.

Yuuri’s face flushed and he let out a shuddering breath, but said nothing. Unfortunately he _did_ stop sending sensations and thoughts – and Victor was angry at himself for having flustered him. But, unconsciously perhaps, he seemed to detect a lovely simmering glow underneath the usual buzz of his presence. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad idea, after all, to reach out to Yuuri in that way, just briefly. He wondered what it would be like to maintain the connection while they gave their physical needs free rein, and felt another wave of desire. But as he had in Boston, he reminded himself to be patient now. He’d already made enough mistakes where Yuuri was concerned.

After the meal, they walked back to the motel, and Victor asked Yuuri into his room so he could show him more of what he’d learned about what he’d come to call phase shifting, changing an object from a solid state to something more permeable. He’d gotten the idea when it felt like his hand wanted to pass through the kitchen floor in his apartment. Possibly it even _had_ , slightly; he wasn’t sure. Not wanting to experiment with his flesh-and-blood self, though, he’d tried it with simple small objects, and that was what he’d shown Yuuri in the barn. It felt like nothing more than a little game now, but he could envisage applications if he got better at it. He’d even played with it aimlessly here in his motel room from time to time, for lack of anything else interesting to do.

He took a quarter out of his backpack and practiced with it in front of Yuuri, feeling absurdly pleased to see his face light up like a child’s at the wonders of a magician. “You mean you never tried this yourself?” Victor said.

“I had no idea it was possible. Can you…can you make it disappear completely?”

Victor shook his head. “The object goes transparent – I don’t have to be holding it – but it’s always still there. You can just pass things through it.”

“But it stays in place – in your hand, or on the table.”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me about the physics behind it. I wouldn’t be able to guess.”

“Teach me?”

Victor did. It was easier like this, using words and being able to show something to someone else who was present with him, than it was to do it via ESP. That was gratifying. But Yuuri couldn’t seem to get the hang of it, no matter how hard he tried, even though he attempted it with different objects in case substance or size were factors. Victor could feel his building frustration.

“I know you’ll be able to do it,” he said reassuringly. “This is your first try. It’ll probably just take some practice.”

Yuuri sighed. They were sitting at Victor’s desk, Victor in a wheeled office chair and Yuuri in a casual one that he’d pulled up. He fingered and spun the quarter he was holding. “Anyway, it’s better to _earn_ money than to make it disappear. I don’t need any phase-shifting ability to be able to do _that_.”

Victor laughed. “You’re funny, Yuuri.” He paused, watching the silver quarter flash as Yuuri played with it. “Do you want to know what happens when I try to do it when there’s nothing there? Well, I mean there’s air, and photons; probably cosmic rays and neutrinos and virtual particles popping into and out of existence – ”

“I get the idea,” Yuuri said with a smirk.

“OK, well…maybe I should just show you, and you’ll see.”

Yuuri watched with eager eyes as Victor sighed and closed his eyes, then stared straight ahead, his gaze unfocused. “I just imagine some empty area becoming transparent. It’s easier if there’s something blank in the background, like a solid wall, or sky, or a carpet.”

Soon there was a little flash of blue light, like something that would emanate from a neon sign shining into the night. It expanded into a tiny oval shape; and as it continued to grow, the blue light flickered and glowed around the perimeter. Inside was…not black; just _nothing._ Empty and alien-feeling. Though whenever Victor did this, he’d been working under the assumption that what he was doing was safe, not having had any indication otherwise. However, one look at the expression on Yuuri’s face told a different story.

 _“Victor!”_ he cried. _“Make it go away!”_

Victor willed it to close, and it did; though he also knew that these things, whatever they were, gradually faded away if they were simply left alone. “Yuuri, are you OK?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on his arm. Though the obvious answer was no.

“W-What _was_ that?”

“I don’t know,” Victor replied, dropping his hand and looking at Yuuri in concern. “It’s just what happens when I do the phase shifting with nothing but air. It seems to be some kind of portal. I’ve done that more times than I can count, but…I’ve never noticed anything harmful. What – ”

“I’ve seen it before,” Yuuri breathed. “A few times now. While I was going to sleep. In dreams. In ESP sessions. I didn’t know what it was…”

 _Like the Orphic egg symbol,_ Victor thought.

“No, not like that,” Yuuri said, giving him a start. “It’s not that clearly associated with…with danger. There’s just something about the inside of it. H-Have you noticed, you can’t really see what’s there? It doesn’t seem to be _anything –_ at least, not anything we’re familiar with. That’s what’s been frightening me.”

“We’re scientists.” Victor noticed he was using the present tense. Well, that was what he was going to continue to do. “That’s the kind of thing we study, isn’t it?” He kept his voice gentle but gave Yuuri a probing look.

“I…sure, yeah. But…it bothers me.”

Victor sighed and thought, resting his chin in his hand. Then he said, “I’m not going to dismiss anything you say again, I promise, Yuuri. But…I’m just trying to understand. I’ve never seen anything come out of one of those…portals, I guess you could call them. But things can go _in._ ”

“They can?” Yuuri whispered.

“Will you let me show you? I can get rid of it, like you just saw. It won’t stay.”

Yuuri stared at the wall with round eyes. Then, eventually, he set his jaw and nodded.

 _That’s my brave boy,_ Victor thought with a surge of pride. He created the portal again and grew it to the size of an ostrich egg. It hovered there above the desk.

“How big can they get?” Yuuri asked, eyeing it with trepidation.

“I…don’t know. I haven’t experimented with that yet. But watch. Um…I wonder what I should put in.”

Yuuri handed him the quarter. Victor took the glinting silver coin between his forefinger and thumb, then moved it nearer to the oval. Yuuri gasped. “Don’t worry, I’ve never touched one. I don’t know what would happen.” When the coin was centimeters away, he flicked it into the portal. Yuuri stretched to view the back of it, but nothing emerged from the other side. The coin had vanished.

“It it…is it gone?”

“I don’t know. But…” Victor reached into a drawer and pulled out a pencil. Before Yuuri could say anything else, he slowly pushed the sharp end into the portal, until half of it had disappeared inside. Then he pulled the pencil back out, intact. “You can see it’s not actually being damaged or destroyed. Well, not that I can tell. But if something enters completely, I’m not sure how you’d get it out of there.”

“C-Can I…?” Yuui asked, looking at the pencil. Victor handed it over, and Yuuri repeated his actions, poking the end of it into the oval and then pulling it back out. “I don’t feel anything when it goes in. Just air…or void. Have you…I don’t know, tried attaching string to something?”

“And pulling it back out? That’s a good idea, but I hadn’t gotten that far, no.” He willed the portal to close and turned to Yuuri, his chin in his hand again. “Intriguing, isn’t it?”

“Uh…I’d like to say so. I don’t know why I’ve been getting those feelings when I see these things in my head, but I think it’s safe to say it’s wise not to ignore them.”

“Sure. If they bother you that much, how about if I promise not to do anything with them on my own? We can investigate them together.”

“That doesn’t make me feel much more at ease, but…OK.” Yuuri gave him a small smile.

“Ready for a rest? We’ve been busy…it’s late.”

“I want to try again,” Yuuri said in a determined voice. “I’m not tired yet. That is, um…if you’re not either.”

“OK. Let me get another coin.”

After another forty minutes or so, Yuuri succeeded in making the quarter he was holding fade a little bit. He tried to hold the effect, and it lasted a few seconds before the coin became solid again. To Victor’s amazement, he was still muttering to himself.

“Yuuri, you did it! Aren’t you pleased?”

He made a sarcastic humphing noise. “Oh come on. That was pathetic.”

Victor’s brow clouded. “It was _wonderful_. You’re acting like someone who expects to be able to go write a symphony when he’s only started learning how to read music. I’m sure you’re more patient with your students than you are with yourself.”

Seeming to ignore his words, Yuuri rested his elbows on the desk, lifted the coin up in front of him, and stared at it. Eventually it faded again, this time for a little longer before it turned solid. Victor made a happy noise in his throat and flung his arms around him, hugging him. Yuuri seemed startled at first, but then Victor could feel him relaxing.

“You’re brilliant, Yuuri,” he gushed against his shoulder.

“Um, thanks,” came the muffled response as Yuuri wrapped his arms around him and hugged him back.

Victor didn’t want to let go. There were so many other things he _did_ want to do. But he mastered himself and gently pulled away, giving Yuuri a smile. “Well done,” he said. “You’ve taught me so much…it’s nice to be able to do the same for you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said, then returned his smile. He gave Victor the quarter. “Here. Show me again.”

“I don’t – ”

“Go on. Remind me what I’m aiming for.”

After a pause, Victor took the quarter and held it up. It faded until it was mostly transparent. He waved the flat of his other hand through it, then turned it solid again and put it down on the desk.

“What if it got solid while you were moving your hand through it?” Yuuri asked in sudden alarm.

“That’s never happened before…but you’re right, maybe it’s a stupid risk to take. I’m not sure I’d want to find out.”

“It hasn’t happened, not even with another object passing through it?”

“It always seems to work the way I want it to.”        

“Is there anything you’re _not_ good at?” Yuuri laughed.

Victor thought. “Don’t ask me to try to be a gardener. I’m terrible at taking care of plants.”

Yuuri’s eyes brightened. “Oh god, that makes two of us. We’d better make sure we either live in an apartment, or have an adobe house someplace where scrub and cacti grow, then.”

Victor blinked and looked at him.

Clearly realizing the import of his words, Yuuri scooted back in his chair and grabbed his backpack off the floor, his cheeks flaming pink. That had happened to him a lot today, but Victor loved it every time.

“It’s late…um, I’d better…” He nodded his head toward the adjoining door. “Thanks for all your help, Victor.”

“My pleasure, Yuuri.” He watched him beat a hasty retreat, still basking in that warm simmering glow that lingered between them, even now.     


	46. Chapter 46

They checked out of the motel the next morning, then walked to the nearest taxi stand about half a mile away, not wanting the desk attendant to call a vehicle for them and therefore give their destination away, in case any agents happened to turn up asking questions. Victor was thankful they hadn’t had any trouble in that respect since they’d left the commune, though he knew it would be foolish to let his guard down. People who had traced him all the way here and then tried to kill them both were not likely to give up easily.

_People who I thought were my friends, all of us just wanting to help people._

He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to live down his catastrophic _naïveté_. But being with Yuuri again was going a long way toward mitigating the pain, at least.

The place they planned to stay next was about half an hour’s drive away to the northeast – the Hotel El Bosque, though it seemed a grand name for the loose collection of dwellings that comprised it, if the photos they’d seen were any indication. They passed the short time in the taxi practicing more phase shifting, which Yuuri was gradually improving at, though Victor thought he was still being hard on himself. Yuuri had also made him promise not to open any portals in the taxi. Not that he’d suggested it anyway.

“It’d be an interesting experiment, though, don’t you think?” he’d said. “We could find out if it moves along with us.”

“And if it didn’t? Wouldn’t that be like leaving a black hole behind for someone to walk into?”

“I don’t know if they can get as big as that. Anyway, I want to get some twine so that I can try what you suggested last night, about throwing things in and pulling them back out. I wonder what’d happen with a watch – whether it’d still work when it came out, or if time works differently on the other side. Or what about trying, I don’t know…something alive, like a plant or an insect?”

“Victor,” Yuuri had interrupted in annoyance, “that stuff creeps me out. Please.”

“Sorry.”

The taxi entered a small forest full of pines, mountain mahogany and lilacs. Beams of cheerful yellow sunlight were scattered by the leaves overhead and dappled on the dusty road. Once at the heart of the wilderness area, having passed clusters of the smart octagonal wood-planked huts the Cloud site had boasted of, the taxi deposited them near a small administrative building. It reminded Victor of a hunting lodge inside, with floor-to-ceiling wooden planks, minus the animal-head trophies common in such places. He began to walk toward the desk, where a young red-haired man in brown pants and shirt with the hotel’s name stitched across the upper left breast stood. Noticing a troubled look suddenly shadow Yuuri’s face, however, he drew him aside and was about to ask what was wrong when Yuuri pre-empted him.

“It’s a new presence,” he whispered. “It’s been a while since one’s found me. I’d better – ”

“Do you want to wait outside while I check us in?” Yuuri nodded and exited.

Victor joined him outside shortly afterward. “OK to talk for a minute?” he asked, noting the intense look of concentration on Yuuri’s face. Again, he simply nodded. “They didn’t have any double rooms left, but we’ve got huts next to each other.” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“That’s OK,” Yuuri answered, somewhat distantly.

Victor recalled the last time he’d seen this happen, when he and Yuuri had been in the office at MIT, and he suddenly realized how drastically his perspective had changed. He would _always_ support Yuuri in doing this. It might not be much of an exaggeration, in fact, to say that it had saved his own life.

“I’ll find our way to the huts,” Victor said. Yuuri held out his hand, and Victor took it. They walked silently side by side, Victor holding a paper map of the area in his free hand and using it to navigate. The twisting fawn-colored trunks and branches of the abundant lilac trees gave an eldritch air to the place, but there were also stands of pines that had carpeted the forest floor with rust-colored needles. The huts were well shaded under these, tucked back from the paths, almost camouflaged. Each had a round roof consisting of panes of glass covered with crisscrossing diamond patterns made by wooden screens, allowing light inside but also providing privacy.

They didn’t have to go far before Victor found the two huts they’d been allotted. He used Yuuri’s key card to open the door for him, then placed the card on a table nearby and left him to it with a little wave. Yuuri nodded back, then disappeared inside.

Victor wasn’t sure how long this kind of thing took. He thought back to his own first experience, and with a jolt imagined what it must be like for the person Yuuri was communicating with. Perhaps they were just as frightened and disoriented as he had been, if not more so. Was there anyone in the world besides himself who knew what Yuuri did, or would believe it if they were told? He wondered what he’d told his friend Rahul. Maybe he was the only other person, then. Surely these…abilities they had deserved to be properly studied. He could come up with a dozen or more research topics right now that would no doubt lead down even more interesting paths. Not bad for someone who, a few days ago, had been willing to undergo an operation to have it all blocked from his life completely. Though it was only something said in the heat of the moment, he knew. He would not have gone through with it any more willingly than Yuuri.

He let himself into his hut, sat down on the single bed, and had a look around. There was definitely a “back to nature” theme going on in here, though it was more of an interior design choice to provide that kind of veneer than anything truly frugal or eco-friendly. The furniture had a deliberate rustic look to it, the seats of the chairs at the kitchen table being little more than slices of tree trunks with cushions. There were shelves protruding intermittently from the walls, and the cabinets around the kitchen sink and in the bathroom all looked like they’d been hewn from massive tree trunks. He briefly wondered if they’d come from sustainable forests, like the rest of the wood the place was made from.

He had a look around outside, taking in the fresh air, thinking he really could fool himself that he was on vacation here. When he went back inside, he sat down on the bed and practiced phase shifting with a coin again, this time tossing it up in the air before he altered it. As it fell back down, semi-transparent, he stuck out a printout of a map he’d made back at La Jolla Amago – and the coin _passed through_ as if the paper wasn’t even there. It dropped solidly onto the polished wooden floor, however, even though Victor had not consciously willed for it to happen.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed in wonderment, bending to pick the coin up. It looked perfectly normal; wasn’t even warm to the touch – though why he expected it to be, he didn’t know. He slipped it into the pocket of his slacks and dashed over to the kitchen table with the printout.

 _Just an ordinary piece of paper, ladies and gentlemen. Observe._ He gave it a theatrical little ripple. _Now watch carefully and prepare to be amazed._ He concentrated for a moment, staring at the paper, and watched it become slightly transparent. Then he lowered a corner toward the table, but the paper just bent when it made contact as it ordinarily would. Willing the paper to become more transparent still, he lowered it again – and it passed straight through with no sensation of having touched anything to impede its progress.

Victor jumped up and gave a little cry of triumph. But his concentration having been shattered, the paper quickly solidified. He was still holding the top of it, but the bottom third of it was somehow firmly wedged in some invisible crevice in the wood. He tugged at the paper until it began to rip. Then he sat down again and took the paper back to a transparent state; and when he pulled at the top once more, he moved it easily, until it was clear of the obstruction.

“There must be a lot of uses for this,” he muttered to himself in Russian. “But it could be very dangerous, too.” And yet there was so much to think about. What _were_ the physics behind it? If only he had access to a lab –

_[Are you there?]_

_Oh_ , he thought with a sudden smile. It was Zvezda. Or, rather, Yuuri. He had to get used to thinking of them as the same person. It had seemed easy enough when they were in each other’s physical presence. Now, however…it felt like he was in his apartment again, reaching out to make contact. Only, _Yuuri_ had done it this time – even though he’d said he’d never been able to do that with any of his presences before. Maybe it was because they were already here together. Had he finished with the other one, then?

Victor went over to the bed and sat down, his back propped against the headboard, his legs stretched out in front of him, and closed his eyes. The background buzz of Yuuri’s usual physical presence was just discernible. Stronger now, though, was the searching mind and rush of warm feelings. Victor imagined soaking in a scented bath surrounded by steam and tealight candles. If it were possible to purr with his thoughts, well, that was what he was doing.

He wasn’t sure how much of this Yuuri felt up to, after what had possibly been a difficult session for him with the other presence. Maybe this was his way of unwinding from it. Not wanting to push anything too demanding or disconcerting on him, Victor undid the top button of his blue shirt, took a deep breath, and…thought of Russia.

Specifically, bringing memories back from when he was younger; wondering if he was succeeding in sharing them. Yuuri said the image he’d sent of the bridge over the river in Cambridge had become clear once he was physically present, so it was possible this would work. He called to mind his bedroom at his father’s house, with electronic components scattered across his desk, posters of musicians on his walls, and Makkachin curled up at the foot of his bed. Then his mind shifted to times when he would investigate the den of marvels that was his father’s workshop, sometimes when his father was there, sometimes alone. He could spend hours pulling something apart to get at the heart of its secrets, only to alter and rebuild it for a new – and improved, he always told himself – purpose. And sometimes he would go to the nearest ice-skating rink with his own skates and dance and glide. It wasn’t that different from ballet, when you thought about it. He liked the fluid feeling of movement on the ice. Maybe he could have pursued that…or maybe the ballet. But other things had happened to influence his path; and he didn’t want to think about those just now.     

He’d sensed Yuuri taking the images in, though he wasn’t sure how well he was transmitting them. Now, though, Yuuri seemed to want to talk – or, rather, communicate. It felt like he’d enjoyed what Victor had shown him.

_[I didn’t know you did ice-skating too. You have so many talents.]_

_[Have you ever tried it yourself?]_

_[No.]_

_[Come with me sometime. You might like it.]_

_[I’d land on my butt.]_

Victor laughed aloud at the image Yuuri sent with that, though the anticipation of the pain involved was not as pleasant. _[I’m sure you’d be beautiful. Just like you always are.]_

There was a fluttery feeling, and ripples of warmth. Victor’s body felt like it was resonating. He was purring inside again.

Yuuri seemed to be thinking; considering. Was he going to show similar things from his own childhood? Victor had gotten the impression, sadly, that he didn’t feel there was much about it worth remembering, or much that wouldn’t hurt him to recall. But then he did send something – images of a place. Victor assumed it was snow he was seeing across the flat ground, with bald brown mountains rising in the distance. But…it didn’t _feel_ cold. Quite the opposite; as pleasant as it was here. And yet, he was seeing the outside of a building made from white blocks; or perhaps its walls were plastered. Wait – no, it was someplace to stay, like a small hotel. And it wasn’t just the walls that were made of the white substance. Tables, chairs, even the bed under the mattress were all carved from it. He sensed an acrid taste.

_[Salt??]_

_[Yes,]_ came the answer brightly.

A hotel made of salt? Where was that? _[Show me more.]_

Again, the snowy – salty – landscape. Little pyramids stacked up on the sprawling, glittering surface, waiting to be collected by a vehicle. Other stretches seemed to be covered with a film of water, turning them into gargantuan mirrors that perfectly reflected the sky, making it seem like anyone who walked across was floating through the ether. Still other areas consisted of nothing but giant grids of interlocked white octagons. And always those bare mountains in the distance, their brown hues spilling and mixing like paints on a palette. There was one – or was it an island? – that seemed to be covered with clusters of cacti, thin and tall. They reminded Victor of…yes, prairie dogs he’d seen a few times on trips to the western U.S., the way they would pop out of their holes in the ground and stand to attention, so stiffly alert. Or…maybe the Rapa Nui statues, those huge carved rock faces all in rows, staring forever out to sea.

Amused confusion from Yuuri. _[Little animals? Rock carvings?]_

_[What those cacti make me think of.]_

_[Oh.]_ That fluttering was still there for a moment; then it faded away.

 _Don’t go,_ Victor wanted to say. He could do this all day.

A knock came at the door. There was a rudimentary Friday in control of the hut; most motels had them, though they were usually nothing more sophisticated than interfaces for switching on lights or controlling the temperature. “Open,” he said, and the wooden door did so, to reveal Yuuri standing there with a smile that might almost have been shy. A ghost of the maroon color of his T-shirt was reflected in his cheeks, and he was holding his backpack.

“Hi,” he said, stepping inside. Then he smiled, and it lit Victor up inside. He gave him a dopey smile in return. Then he scooted over and patted the space next to him, though it was small on the single bed. “How was it for you?” he asked in a teasing voice, unable to help himself.

The pink on Yuuri’s cheeks deepened, but the smile didn’t leave his eyes. He placed his backpack on the floor, then came over to sit next to him on the bed. “Wonderful,” he whispered, slowly moving so close that Victor could count each individual eyelash if he wanted. And closer still…until Yuuri was pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. He hovered afterward, as if debating what it was OK to do next.

 _Anything,_ Victor thought fervently. _Do anything. Just…don’t leave it at that. Please._

Victor wasn’t trying to say it through ESP, but there seemed to be a flicker of understanding in Yuuri’s eyes. He leaned in again, his lids dropping closed, and gave Victor another gentle kiss, lingering to capture his bottom lip. Feeling like he might go mad with this teasing, but at the same time loving the renewed contact after so long apart, Victor stroked his cheek with the backs of his fingers and whispered his name. Said how glad he was to be with him again; how much he’d missed him. Yuuri took a shuddering breath, then surged forward and kissed him with the passion that he remembered, reaching a hand behind his head to thread his fingers through the fine hairs there, his other hand wrapping around his back, palm firm and pressing. Victor made a strangled sound in his throat and placed his hands on either side of Yuuri’s neck. When Yuuri’s tongue touched and caressed the tip of his own, he moaned. Had he really been thinking he’d be happy with sharing mental images all day? He was wrong. _This_ was what he wanted to be doing. Now that Yuuri was back in his arms, he wanted them both to stay like this forever.

Yuuri turned his head to breathe against Victor’s cheek, and Victor couldn’t resist running his fingers through his hair for the first time in ages. _Oh, please don’t let this stop._

“What was that all about – the animals and the statues? What were they?” Yuuri asked between kisses to Victor’s cheek.

“Hm?” Victor said vacantly. Yuuri smelled just like he always had, something uniquely himself. He wanted to search out more of it, and make him writhe and twitch and cry out in pleasure.

Yuuri pulled back and looked at him, and the cool air between their faces suddenly felt like a loss. “I was showing you a vacation I had, and you said the cacti reminded you of – ”

“Oh…” Victor regretfully allowed the moment to slip away, though his fingers remained in Yuuri’s hair, and Yuuri’s in his. “Prairie dogs and the moai statues on Rapa Nui.”

“Flink,” Yuuri said with a small laugh. “That’s really creative.”

“Where on earth _was_ that place, anyway?”

“My family took me there on vacation just before I went away to MIT. It’s Salar de Uyuni in southwestern Bolivia, the largest salt flat in the world.”

Victor raised his eyebrows. “And you stayed in a hotel made of salt there?”

“Yeah.”

“That _is_ flink.”

Yuuri laughed again. “Though we didn’t just go there. We drove and walked across the Altiplano.” His voice dropped. “It’s beautiful, Victor. I’d love to go back, with you.”

“We will one day. And you can…” He left the rest unsaid. _You can come to St. Petersburg and meet my father and sister._ But even he couldn’t do that himself, now.

“I know,” Yuuri said softly, running fingers down his check. “We’ll do that too, one day. We’ll find a way.”

Victor leaned in and stole one more kiss.

“We should have some lunch,” Yuuri finally said.

“You’ll have to come up with a better idea to tear me away from this,” Victor mumbled, staring at Yuuri’s inviting pink lips.

“More ESP?”

“Maybe. Though come to think of it, when I was checking us in, I found out they have a gym here. I haven’t had a good workout in days and I think I’d feel better for it. We could have something to eat, and then do that. If…you’re not too tired.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “Why would I be tired?”

“All the ESP you’ve been doing – ”

He shook his head. “Sometimes it’s invigorating. It depends on what I’m doing. With you, like how it was just now, it’s…fun.”

“I thought so too. And you found me, didn’t you? You said you couldn’t do that.”

“That was the first time it ever worked. I could hardly believe it. Maybe – ”

“ – because we’re together?”

Yuuri gave him a lovely smile and stroked his cheek again. “Come on. We’d better check this nearby town out and see if we can get some food to bring back.”

There was little remarkable about Del Dios, Victor decided when they got there; another typical place with a main street and basic provisions. But they found what they needed, returned to Victor’s hut for a late lunch, and spent the afternoon working out and relaxing in the whirlpool while they sent clothes to be washed via drone. That night Victor showed Yuuri what he’d discovered earlier with the coin and piece of paper; and while he agreed that it was an exciting discovery, he said he was also concerned about the potential for accidents and injuries.

“But Yuuri, think of the possibilities,” Victor said – mainly for the sake of being devil’s advocate, because he didn’t disagree. “You’d never need a hammer again – just push the nail into the wall and leave it. For that matter, you wouldn’t have to glue anything together either. If you were a furniture-maker, you’d have it made.”

“And if you tried to pass your hand through something you’d phase shifted – let’s say the piece of paper – and it suddenly solidified, then what? Do your fingers fall off?”

“Well, more experimentation is called for, I think.”

“Not like that, it isn’t.”

“Not with fingers maybe, but…”

They were sitting next to each other on the bed; Victor got up for a moment to fetch a carrot from the fridge and brought it back over, along with the map printout from his backpack that he’d used that morning. Holding the carrot in one hand and the map in the other, he concentrated on the latter until it was sufficiently transparent to pass through the former. In the middle of the process, he willed the paper to become solid again, which it did – and the end of the carrot on the other side of it fell off as neatly as if Victor had sliced it through with an axe.

“Shit,” he said, his eyes wide.

Yuuri picked up the carrot end and felt the area where it had been amputated. “Smooth as glass,” he said in wonder.

Putting the map down, Victor ran his fingers over the end of the piece he still held in his hand. “Wow. That’s…just, wow.”

“I don’t think you’d want to risk that with your hand, or any other body part, would you?”

“Of course not,” Victor said, appalled.

“I guess you’d never need a knife again, either. Though it’d probably take you a while to chop something up that way…”

“Point taken,” Victor said, picking the carrot pieces up and putting them back in the fridge. When he returned to the bed, Yuuri was holding the map printout.

“Palomar Mountain. And a lot of blurry huts.”

“This map might’ve saved your life, Yuuri. I used it to find where you were when – when…”

“Yeah. I’ve been wondering about that, and the barn. So how did you do it?”

Victor showed him. Yuuri seemed impressed, even delighted, just as he had been with the phase shifting – moreso even, perhaps because the practical uses for this ability were more obvious. He commented that if Victor knew about automatic writing and Ouija boards, he couldn’t be that closed-minded about the paranormal; though Victor had insisted that absorbing a little knowledge about everything you came across was never a bad idea. He knew about spiritualism and séances too, but that didn’t mean he was ready to participate. They’d experienced something of a revival in the past decade.

Yuuri just huffed and took Victor’s old map of southern California, successfully using the technique to find their current location. “You’re a genius, Victor. I wonder what else you’ll think of. If I’d known you years ago – ”

“I wouldn’t have had ESP then.”

“No, I guess not.” _[And you wouldn’t have wanted to know me, either. I didn’t look so good.]_

Victor got the impression that Yuuri hadn’t meant to send the thought, but the emotion behind it was so strong that it carried, like smoke on the wind. He looked intensely into those large brown eyes and placed a palm on his cheek. “I would’ve been happy to know you at any point in your life. Do you really think these…little problems you’ve had would prevent me from seeing the lovely person you are inside?”

“They’re not _little_ problems – ” Yuuri began to protest, but Victor had heard enough. He grabbed him, crushing the silly map between them, and kissed him hard. Once he got over the initial surprise, Yuuri wrapped his arms around him and kissed back until he seemed to forget to breathe, drawing away eventually with a gasp. 

“I should be ashamed of myself,” Victor muttered, running his thumb along Yuuri’s bottom lip. “Taking advantage of the fact that I have a hot man next to me on my bed.” Though he deliberately made it sound like he felt anything _but_ ashamed.

“Hot man,” Yuuri echoed with a little laugh, his eyelids half-closed.

“And not just _any_ hot man. _Yuuri Katsuki_ , of all people. Thank my lucky stars.”

Yuuri let out another laugh. “Victor,” he said in a quiet, chiding voice.

“But…” Victor’s voice dropped to a more serious note, and he pulled back a little, to get a proper look at Yuuri. “…if I’m coming on too strong, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”

Now Yuuri practically guffawed. “As if _you’d_ do _that_ , Mister ‘Starting Today I’m Your Research Partner.’ Not that I minded, of course.”

“A little misunderstanding,” Victor said with a grin.

“Oh, I hope not.”

Now it was Victor’s turn to chuckle. He grabbed the map, which was crinkling irritatingly, and tossed it to the floor. Again aiming for a serious tone, he said, “Yuuri…I know we had some…issues we needed to talk about and try to understand. And I know you said you thought it would be good for us to get used to being with each other again. I just wanted to tell you that I…I’m good with that, now. Really good.” He took in a breath as Yuuri watched him silently, arms around his back, resting there. “When we hold each other like this, I…want you.” He let the breath back out. “But maybe that’s putting pressure on you that you don’t need. So like I said, if I’m coming on too strong – ”

Yuuri smiled at him, still with those alluring half-lidded eyes. He stroked a finger under his chin, which sent a little thrill through him. “You’re just being Victor. You think I’m not used to that by now?”

Victor looked at him, taking this in.

“You think I’d kiss you if I didn’t want to? I’ve dreamed about being able to do this again…when it felt right.”

“So does it feel right?” Victor ventured to ask, his heart missing a beat.

“ _Very_ right.” Yuuri grabbed his lapels and, firmly but not harshly, pulled him in for another kiss. Victor felt like he was on a cloud with angels and harps and choirs and everything divine that existed. Then Yuuri was resting his forehead against his own, their lips not quite touching, while he breathed a giggle.

“What?” Victor asked gently, bemused.

“The images you just sent me. Choirs of angels?”

Victor laughed too. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s OK. It was…I liked it.”

“I wonder what else you’d like,” Victor purred.

Yuuri opened his mouth to reply, but then there was a flash of alarm in his eyes, and he drew back, dropping his arms to his sides.

“What is it?” Victor asked in concern. Had he done something – ?

Yuuri had a distant look, as if he were searching inwardly for something. “I don’t know, I…I feel really weird all of a sudden. Like…”

Then he flung himself backward on the bed, his hands against his ears, face contorted as he screamed.

“ _Bozhe!_ ” Victor exclaimed, scrambling to kneel next to him, looking down in helplessness as Yuuri writhed in pain. “What’s happening? Yuuri!”

Yuuri screamed again, tears squeezing from his eyes.

“Tell me how I can help!”

Seeming to come back to himself a little, Yuuri lowered his arms, breathing hard, his forehead beaded with sweat. He looked at Victor, fear written large in his eyes. “I…it’s…” he began; but the words were choked off as he cried out again, his hands flying to his head as he tucked his knees in toward himself.

Victor was close to tears as well. Was he having some kind of seizure? Should he call a doctor? Oh god, if he only had a chip, it would be the work of a second. There weren’t even any phones in these huts, as far as he could tell…

“Stop it!” Yuuri shouted, his eyes still closed.

“Stop what?” Victor asked in confusion. “Yuuri, I just want to help – ”

“Not you,” Yuuri panted, slanting a glance at him with those frightened eyes. “It’s…” He gave another throaty cry of pain. “…it’s Crow; he…”

Now Victor’s eyes shot open wide. “What? How?”

“Victor, it _hurts_ …”   

Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hand and held it tight. “I’m here, my love. Just…please tell me how I can help.”

“I don’t know…” He cried out again through clenched teeth. “…can’t think…”

In desperation, Victor gathered him in his arms as if he were a casualty on the battlefield, cradling him while continuing to hold his hand. When Yuuri could bear to open his eyes, Victor met them and went straight down into their depths.

_[I don’t understand what I did to make you hate me.]_

Yuuri, sending not to him but to Crow. And an answer, like an echo, not in words, but the angry sentiment clear: _[Don’t flatter yourself. You’re nothing to me.]_

_[Stop this.]_

_[When I’m enjoying it so much? No.]_

An explosion. Yuuri screamed. Victor heard the muffled physical sound as if he were underwater. He was also just outside the door of a struggle inside a dark room full of pain and fear, unsure whether he could do anything directly to intervene.

 _[That’s just a warm-up.]_ Victor could feel him taking genuine delight in this. Like a cat playing with a mouse. He bristled with fury – and almost lost his connection. No, it wouldn’t do any good to try to bluster against this man, and possibly draw an attack on himself. He needed to try to stay calm for Yuuri’s sake as well as his own. Which was a tall order. He had no idea what Crow was doing, or if it was likely to cause permanent harm.

“I’m here for you,” he said aloud. “I’ve got you. Yuuri, you have to fight him.”

“…can’t…too strong…”

“You _have_ to. I don’t know what else we can do, baby. Please – try. Think of…” _Something to anchor you. Like you taught me._ “…a baseball game; the one where I gave you the horseshoe from my box of Cracker Jack. Or…” He wracked his brains for something especially inane. “…that time in the lab when we were flirting like a couple of planks? _My nigral dopamine neurons are depolarizing_.” He huffed a laugh.

To his amazement, Yuuri laughed too, despite the sickly cast of his face.

Victor could feel him take a mental step back and regroup. For the moment, he was no longer the helpless victim of a merciless onslaught, but was…waiting for something?

The edge of the next explosion came, like the first spark of a firework ready to blossom. Victor had the absurd image of a batter swinging at a ball thrown his way. A shattering burst of energy as the bat connected, turning the momentum around completely…and knocking the ball out of the park.

Everything was suddenly red, like a spray of blood across the windscreen of a taxi. Then a raucous shriek that was not quite physical but seemingly just as real, before all faded to black. Quiet nothingness afterward, drifting through space.

Victor became aware of his shuddering breaths and tear-stained cheeks. Watched as Yuuri looked up at him, blinking. “Are you OK?” Victor asked him softly.

Yuuri pressed his lips together in a little grin. “It worked…” He took a few breaths. “You helped me calm down and think – especially about the baseball, and…it worked. He’s gone.”

“I’m glad.”

“Taste of his own medicine…It’s only fair, I think. Maybe he won’t try that again.”

“Oh, Yuuri…I didn’t know what to do.”

“I didn’t expect it. He found me somehow.”

Victor felt cold fear lodge in his abdomen. “That’s…not good, is it. What if he finds you again? Or me?”

“We have to think of a way of fighting back, or at least defending ourselves,” Yuuri said, trying to sit up. The strength seemed to have drained from his limbs. Victor helped him. “It was bad enough running away from the agents, but this…”

“Tomorrow,” Victor said, “we’ll work on it as long as it takes. We can’t just be a couple of…what’s the expression? Sitting ducks.”

“Yeah…good idea.”

“And for now…” Victor pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. “…we stick together. I don’t want you to be in the other hut if something like this happens again. You sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep in the chair over there.”

“Victor – ”

“No arguing,” Victor said gently, touching the tip of Yuuri’s nose with his forefinger.

“I don’t think I have the energy to, anyway,” he sighed. “I don’t like the idea of you sleeping in a chair all night. But…OK.”

“Get some sleep then, baby,” Victor said, kissing his forehead this time. “It looks like you need it.”

Yuuri gave him a crooked grin, his eyes sparkling. He seemed to like the nickname. Victor felt a wave of warmth infuse him, after everything they’d just been through, and smiled back.


	47. Chapter 47

“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t it be better to just stay with us?”

Crow stared at his tablet, on which appeared Agent Adam Lafaye’s bland square-jawed face. He himself was sitting in a cheerless underground room in a compound in the middle of nowhere. _All_ these military compounds were cheerless. Maybe they figured miserable conditions fostered aggressiveness. Maybe they weren’t wrong.

“I haven’t got time for that shit.” He dabbed at his nose with a white handkerchief. It was stained with blood, though the flow seemed to be easing at last. The metallic-tasting drip down his throat made his voice croak. “You guys are paid to do all the chasing around. I come in for the kill.”

“And in the meantime, what…you get nosebleeds?”

Crow narrowed his eyes. _Prick._ “I can give _you_ more than a nosebleed, Agent Lafaye. I can make it so that you can’t get out of bed for a week. Go on, try your luck – I could do with a laugh.”

He watched in satisfaction as consternation crept across the agent’s face. Yes, he knew Crow could and would; though he hadn’t tried it at a distance with someone who didn’t have ESP. Lafaye wasn’t to know that, of course.

“How does working remotely like that help us catch Vic – Dr. Nikiforov and Dr. Katsuki?”

“It softens them up. If they’re injured and distracted, it should be easier to find them. Shouldn’t it?” Well, it sounded plausible. The truth of the matter, however, was that he’d been _ecstatic_ to have finally found Yuuri’s presence, after months of diligent searching. It didn’t mean a great deal; focusing on it was like tuning into a distant radio signal, faint enough to be almost nonexistent. But he’d gotten enough of a hold on it to be able to give him some payback for the treatment he’d dished out. That was, until Yuuri had worked out some way of sending it straight back at him, plus interest. His precious _Victor_ had been there as a spectator, no doubt goading him on – and just when Crow had him where he wanted him.

The Institute wanted Dr. Nikiforov back. Alive. Crow wasn’t too concerned about that. Accidents happened. Particularly to people who deserved them.

“We’re doing our best, Agent Crow,” Lafaye said. It looked like he was in some nondescript motel room with one of those ancient clunky 2D televisions behind him.

“It’s not good enough. _Comb_ that goddamn area. Search CCTV footage of places they’re likely to visit – Cloud cafés, hotels and motels, grocery stores, fucking taxi stands. Send shit up in the sky that can search and kill. Get this fucking three-ring-circus of a case done and dusted.”

“Look…” He seemed to be considering how best to say what he wanted to without causing offense.

 _Impossible,_ Crow thought, _so don’t bother._

“…I know this is a big deal for you.”

_What the fuck?_

“But I guess I don’t need to remind you that we’re looking for others too. Dr. Katsuki, when he left Boston, wasn’t at the top of our list of dangerous fugitives. No one believed what he was saying, for a start. And now Victor…well, if anything, he’s just a nice jack. I wouldn’t put him at the top of the list either, apart from the Institute liking the work he was doing for them – though how they think they’re going to get him to do it again without some serious coercion – ”

“That’s not my concern.”

“All right. Well anyway, the two of them shouldn’t be hard to spot and neutralize, eventually. We thought they might even come back to Boston, knowing how attached they are to it. If we can’t find them out here in California, we were thinking of waiting to see if they turned up there. We haven’t exactly got endless resources to devote to this, which is why we were hoping you’d – ”

“This is the fucking _CIA_ we’re talking about, right?” Crow’s headache was coming back.   

“With all due respect, Agent, you don’t think this is all we’re interested in, do you? Chasing down people with ESP may be your complete remit, but it isn’t mine.”

“It’s personal now, OK?” Crow snapped, tempted to see just what he could accomplish on Agent Lafaye long-distance. “I’m telling you to get on it. And another thing – how did the all-knowing all-seeing CIA not know that Nikiforov had ESP until he was talking to Katsuki about it in that barn? When did it start? Don’t you think that’s something you should’ve found out about before then?”

Adam’s square jaw shifted mechanically. “We know now.”

“Just fucking _find_ them, Agent. And let me know the instant you do.” Before Lafaye could reply, he ended the call and slammed the tablet down on the counter in front of him, dabbing some more at his nose with the handkerchief.

How did these useless fuckwits keep their jobs? he wondered. At least they had him to mop up their messes. If people like Yuuri and Victor grew a backbone and discovered what they could accomplish with their ESP, they could be like him – respected, feared, formidable. Well, maybe Yuuri was on his way, at least. He was a constant challenge. Didn’t want to be seduced, kept eluding his pursuers, then defended himself well when cornered. But where was the fun of the hunt, he reminded himself, if the prey was caught too soon? Yuuri’s pathetic attempts at shaking him off would just make it more satisfying when Crow had him at his mercy.

And Nikiforov was…untried. Maybe it was time that changed…or maybe not. Yuuri was the known quantity; the one he’d connected with, the one whose mind he’d found after all that searching. The original target. Get him, and you’d get Victor; they came as a set. Still, Crow was curious. What had caused the good doctor to suddenly develop ESP, and just what was he able to do with it? What did that mean Crow could do, in turn, to him? It was interesting to speculate.

As for Yuuri, he was such a do-gooder it was a wonder he hadn’t already disappeared up his own sanctimonious ass. Definitely time to take him down and do the world a favor.

He turned the possibilities over in his head as he dabbed at his nose.

***

“Morning.”

Victor’s consciousness surfaced with Yuuri’s greeting and lingering kiss on his forehead. His limbs were stiff from having slept all night in the chair. All right, it was soft and cushioned, but it was still a chair. He opened an eye.

“I’m just going to go over to my hut for a few minutes and shower and all that stuff. I left some of my things over there.”

“Let me say a proper good morning first,” Victor insisted softly, urging Yuuri’s head down toward his own.

“Victor,” Yuuri said a little nervously as he nevertheless cooperated and bent over, “I’ve got morning breath.”

“Me too. Don’t care.” He made a little humming noise as their lips pressed and slid, Yuuri resting his hands on his bare shoulders; Victor had stripped down to his briefs the night before and pulled a cover over himself in the chair, which was now halfway down his chest. Soon they’d deepened the kiss, Victor’s tongue drawing lazy circles around Yuuri’s; he made the most delightful little noise in the back of his throat while his fingers stared to knead into Victor’s shoulders. Throbbing, Victor was tempted to pull him onto his lap. But through the heat infusing his brain, he found some rational thoughts.

 _Yuuri was threatened last night, and it might happen again. What am I doing?_ He was genuinely annoyed at himself. This was not what Yuuri needed right now; though at least he wasn’t protesting. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he began to glide his fingers across Victor’s chest, over a collarbone and a nipple.

“Yuuri,” he said, sweeping a caress down his cheek, “we ought to start practicing soon, hm? Or brainstorming, or whatever it is we need to do. I…don’t want to see that happen to you again.”

Yuuri stood up slowly with a smile and nodded. Victor’s eyes traced out the bulge in the front of his jeans, and he felt an answering twitch, wanting to moan in frustration at his lack of self-control.   

“You’re right,” Yuuri said. “You’re just very distracting.”

 _Look who’s talking,_ Victor thought.  

“Back in a few minutes.”

Victor took a cold shower, put on a button-down shirt and slacks, and got some food out for breakfast. After Yuuri had returned and they’d eaten, they remained at the tree-trunk-slice of kitchen table and discussed possibilities for how to defend themselves against Crow, or even attack if they had to. Yuuri suggested they try something like sparring, with one person putting up a defense while the other one tried to break through.

“I don’t know how to do either of those things,” Victor said.

“Um, well, I’m not sure I do either,” Yuuri confessed. “Though I’ve got some ideas. This is something I haven’t had the chance to practice with another person before. Come to think of it, I’m not sure it’d work with you anyway…”

“Enlighten me,” Victor said, propping his chin in a hand.

Yuuri asked him if he recalled the night they’d gone dancing at Qi – as if he could ever forget – and the man at the bar who had been trying to rope him. Apparently _Yuuri_ had been the reason why he’d behaved like he’d suddenly been kicked in the gut. Only, it had been an accident, and Yuuri didn’t know how he’d done it. He’d been trying to replicate it ever since, without success on living things, though it was how he’d learned how to damage electronic equipment.

“It would’ve been really handy, too,” he said, “when agents were after me. But usually then I’m so anxious that I can’t concentrate. I can’t always take guns out when I need to. If you hadn’t found me when Crow – ”

Victor could see the agitation building in his eyes as he spoke, and cut in. “I think I see what you mean now. So one of us tries to send this…ball of energy, and the other tries to block it, or shield themselves from it.”

“I think both of those things would be handy, don’t you?”

“Let’s try one first, then the other.” Victor chuckled. “You like throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a study, don’t you?”

“Do I?”

“It’s OK – I’ve always thought you had a creative way of designing them. But in this case, if something isn’t working, we’ll need to know what. Let’s see if we can get one going first – the attack.”

Yuuri looked dubious. “That did occur to me. It’s just that I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you either. I promise I’ll be careful. You said you couldn’t get it to work anyway, so I doubt you’re likely to knock me off my feet.”

“It’s going to feel strange being each other’s experimental subject.”

“You’ve never used yourself for an experiment before?” Victor asked, blinking at Yuuri, who answered with a quiet smile. “Besides, it was your idea.” _He_ was finding this odd for different reasons, he decided. It felt safe, even comforting, to communicate in the language of researchers as if they were sitting in a university office. And then when he thought about both of them being unable to return to their jobs…possibly never again? No, he couldn’t contemplate that…it of course had the opposite effect. He wondered if they might be able to work in another country where chips weren’t ubiquitous. But those countries didn’t tend to produce top-notch scientists or research; they didn’t tend to be well-funded. And the two of them would have to take on pseudonyms, as they’d been doing when checking into motels (Yuuri was John Smith and Victor was Gordon Bennett, something he’d picked up on a visit to England), maybe learn a new language; without a chip to translate, yes, that would probably be necessary…

“Victor?” Yuuri said.

He realized he’d allowed himself to get distracted – again. This wasn’t the right time at all to be thinking about such things. They were his personal problems. Well, Yuuri’s too. They always seemed to be there, just under the surface, waiting to emerge. But their own immediate safety had to be a priority.

“I’m sorry, Yuuri,” he answered quietly. “A lot on my mind.”

“I can imagine.”

“Should we…try this, then? You start.”

“I…I’m not sure I can. Even, you know, as sparring.”

Victor chuckled. “Imagine I’ve done something to really piss you off, then. Maybe it’ll help.”

_“Victor.”_

“You’ve got more experience of these things than me. Come on, Yuuri. Have at it.”

In the end, Victor could feel Yuuri’s attacks in his gut. They were gentle but noticeable, and added up to a bit of a stomach ache in the end. They would have been in no way disabling, but Yuuri refused to try to send anything stronger, and said it already felt terrible to be “attacking” Victor in that way.

Victor experimented next with creating a mental shield. It was pure guesswork, just like locating Yuuri on the maps had been; and he suspected that what he was really doing was creating images that enabled him to tap into whatever power he needed, by helping him to focus his concentration. Imagining himself being surrounded by a transparent suit of armor as strong as diamond seemed to prevent him from being able to feel any more of the energy Yuuri was sending, even though Yuuri swore he was making it more intense, as Victor had asked.

When they switched, he could understand what Yuuri meant about attacking the other person. Someone you loved. All his instincts were against it; but as their lives might depend on this at some point, he persevered. When he disabled electronic equipment, he envisioned a beam of light like a laser gun might emit, rather than the ball of energy Yuuri described, but the effect seemed to be similar; Yuuri felt it both times Victor made attempts, and he decided that was enough before Yuuri invented his own shield.

“I’d have to say the results are inconclusive,” Victor commented after a long morning of practicing over and over. “Neither of us is going to seriously attack the other. I guess all we can do is try, when the time comes.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Yuuri muttered.

“I’m happier with the shielding. Maybe that’s something we could use to stop Crow from getting to you. I don’t know how long the effects last, though. If you put up a shield and went to sleep, say, would it still be there in the morning?”

Yuuri just shook his head. “It’s better than nothing, though.” He suddenly brightened. “Do you remember asking me if there was a way to hide ourselves from security cameras, rather than taking them out all the time? I wonder if the shielding would work for that, too.”

Victor ran a hand over his face, thinking. “I wouldn’t like to try it out for real and discover it didn’t.”

“Well no, of course not. But maybe there’s someplace in town that sells cameras for home use. We could get one working and experiment with that.” He shrugged. “What else have we got to do?”

Victor thought for a moment, then smiled at him. “I agree. Let’s give it a try.”

They found a hardware store that sold what they needed, then they brought the equipment back to Victor’s hut and set the camera and monitor up on the kitchen table. They ate a quick lunch while discussing techniques to use in attempts to fool the camera.

“Do we make ourselves invisible on the screen, or make the screen black out, or what, I wonder,” Victor mused while plucking some grapes from a bunch.

“I guess we’ll have to experiment and see.” Yuuri was eating the carrot that had been sliced by the paper the previous night, having given it some curious looks before biting in.

“I’d give anything to know what the physics is behind all this.”

“Maybe a whole new kind is waiting to be discovered,” Yuuri said as he chewed. “Classical physics, quantum physics, ESP physics.”

“Hm. Having some understanding of it _now_ would be a big help.”

“Sure it would. We’re not doing too bad with guessing, though, are we? Anyway, if we can’t do anything with the camera, we can just keep taking them out like we have been.”

“We don’t always know where they are, though,” Victor said, reaching over to tinker with the monitor on the table. “We can’t be sure we’re getting them all. If we can do something that affects all the cameras in the immediate area, we’d probably be safer.”

“I won’t argue with you.” Yuuri finished the carrot and looked around. “You know, I guess it’s probably best for us to stay together in one hut, after…what happened. I could cancel our reservation for my own hut, and we could just stay in this one. I’ll take a turn in the chair tonight.”

Victor looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Why?” Yuuri laughed. “You had the chair last night.”

“And you’ve been recovering from being attacked.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Yuuri said with a smile. Look, no scars.”

“I’m serious,” Victor said, and meant it.

“So am I,” Yuuri said quietly. “I’m not fragile, Victor.”

“No, you aren’t. I’m just – ”

“Being gallant.”

Was that praise or an insult? He knitted his brow.

“I appreciate it, but there’s no need.”

Victor laughed and shook his head. “Fine. Be stubborn.”

“Thank you, I will.” Yuuri winked at him, and it was like an arrow through his heart. He sat and stared like an idiot. “Come on, then,” Yuuri added with a smile. “Let’s do this.”

Victor hardly noticed the time passing, and Yuuri seemed to be as involved in their task as he was. Early on, Yuuri suggested they return to the hardware store and buy a different type of camera by a different manufacturer, so that they could compare results; Victor wondered why he didn’t think of it himself when they’d been there the first time, but he supposed that was all part of the discovery process when conducting research.

At first, neither of them seemed to be able to affect the cameras at all, though they were careful with what they did, because making them explode into sparks would mean they had nothing left to experiment with. Yuuri was the first one to achieve a concrete result, walking into the sightline of the camera while Victor watched the monitor. There was a wavering look to him, as if he were being viewed through frosted glass. When Victor cried out, Yuuri ran over to look at the footage, and they shared a triumphant hug and kiss.

“Well, it’s a start,” Yuuri said. “Let’s not get too excited about that; you can still see me.”

“What were you thinking?” Victor asked, watching the footage play back on loop.

“That there was a big black umbrella between myself and the camera, hiding me from it.”

“A…big black umbrella?”

“They have a lot of them in Oxford. It just popped into my head – you know, something you can shelter under.”

Victor smirked. “OK. I like it. Should we try some more?”

They did, and eventually Yuuri succeeded in hiding himself so well from the camera that there was only a ripple of disturbance, as of static across the screen, that wouldn’t be noticeable unless someone knew to look for it. It would work perfectly for what they wanted to achieve, which was for their appearance on camera to be unrecognizable. And it didn’t seem to require too much intense concentration once you knew how to do it, Yuuri said. After more trial and error, they discovered that the effect would last about ten minutes and then fade away if active concentration had ceased. The same was true for both cameras.

It took longer for Victor to be able to manage to copy what Yuuri had done, but Yuuri was patient, encouraging and praising him. _He’d make a good teacher,_ Victor thought, and then laughed to himself. Of course he would. Wasn’t that what’d he’d already done for him, before he’d even come out here to find him? For that matter, he’d been doing it for years with his students at the university, even if he’d said it made him anxious.

And like any good teacher, he was full of ideas. When they were satisfied with their results from working with the cameras, he pulled a tiny box out of his backpack. “I got this, too. If you feel up to trying.”

“What is it?”

“GPS tracker. I thought we could see if we’d be able to block this as well as a camera reading. If we can, maybe then we could really say we’re shielding ourselves from these gadgets. You know, making ourselves invisible to them.”

“Sure.”

“Here’s the piece you put in a pocket or pin on your lapel,” Yuuri said, handing him a disc the size of a button with a clasp attached to it. “Let’s see if you can fool this – ” He held up the small tablet that had come with the tracker, which showed a zoomed-in local map. “ – into thinking _that_ isn’t here. It’s already found you; look.” There was a red pointer over Victor’s location on the map.

Victor concentrated, using their previous technique of “hiding” behind a mental umbrella; and they quickly discovered that the results were similar to those they’d achieved with the cameras. Yuuri took a turn next, and he soon made the pointer wink out of existence just like Victor had. They again seemed to have a grace period of about ten minutes, if their concentration ceased, before the pointer reappeared.

Eventually, both of them had to admit that they were tired, long after the sun had set and crickets were chirping outside. But it had felt to Victor like one of the most productive days he’d ever spent. He’d gone from parlor tricks to developing skills that would be immediately useful to them both, and he was looking forward to practicing.

Yuuri seemed pleased as well. They’d kicked off their shoes and socks and were sitting next to each other on the bed, Victor with his legs over the side and Yuuri with his crossed. It reminded Victor of times when he was a boy and he’d had a friend over to spend the night. There was a long diffused white light mounted on the wall behind the bed, shaded by a wooden slat so that it shone down for a purpose like reading without illuminating the rest of the room. Victor wondered idly if the stars were out tonight; the whole Milky Way, even. He could step outside and look. But he was more interested in the man next to him. Much more.

“Yuuri, would you mind if I asked you about your experience with having ESP? How it started; what it was like?” He noted the surprised look on his face and added, “If you’d rather not, that’s – ”

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t expect you to ask, that’s all.”

So Yuuri told him. He reminded Victor that he’d been seven years old. _Seven._ Victor tried to imagine going through what he’d been through himself, at that young an age, and felt a shiver of horror pass through him. It sounded like it had been worse for Yuuri; other presences, complete dissociation, living through nightmares, the feeling of falling forever. Victor wondered if that was what Anna had experienced, or something akin to it; they sounded like similar “symptoms,” if you looked at it from a psychiatric point of view. Yuuri said he’d been given a lifeline by a kind grandfatherly-seeming presence full of knowledge and love. Then there was the shaman he’d met while he’d been on vacation. _You have an ability, not an illness._ Those words that had meant so much to Yuuri that he’d cried when he’d told Victor at MIT.

 _And what did I do? Assumed that he had an illness, not an ability._ He wondered if he might feel guilty about that for the rest of his life. But there came a time, eventually, where a person had to forgive themselves, he thought. He’d been ignorant of many things then.

He asked Yuuri if he had any idea what had triggered the ESP, but he replied that it was a mystery; one he’d been hoping he could answer by choosing a career in neuroscience. After ten years, however, he felt no closer to an answer.

He carried on describing his childhood experiences, restating some of the things he’d originally said in the office at MIT – about how he’d pretended he was “cured” so that he didn’t have to take more medications; how he wanted to help other people going through the same experience he had. It sounded like his communication with the presences was the only ability he’d discovered until that night when he’d physically affected the man who’d been pestering Victor at Qi; he couldn’t even remember his name. He thought it was probably juvenile of him, but he couldn’t help but feel there was something sexy about that.

“It was still hard to handle, in spite of the help I got,” Yuuri said.

“It doesn’t sound like you _did_ get much help.” Victor scooted nearer so that his leg was gently touching Yuuri’s denim-covered knee. He leaned on an arm and looked into those beautiful brown eyes, which had the firmness of having come to terms with those experiences mixed with the haunted look of someone who would never forget all the same. “Not in your day-to-day life,” Victor added.

“That’s true,” Yuuri said quietly. “I felt so different from everybody. And going to college when I was fourteen, well…it didn’t help.” He paused. “Then there was the anxiety on top of it. Sometimes I’d comfort eat too, like I told you, though I still danced and worked out, too. It could feel like I was always trying to juggle everything. At least I got a handle on the eating part of it…mostly. Not completely – well, you know that.” He took a shuddering breath. “When I remember those days, I didn’t think anyone would ever find me desirable until…” As his voice trailed off, he looked down and played with his fingers.

Victor recalled the stray thought he’d picked up from Yuuri, just the day before, about how Victor would not have wanted to know him when he was younger and overweight. It clearly had continued to prey upon him all these years. Yuuri clearly knew how to flirt and tease, follow his body’s desires and take what he wanted; and he did not appear to be overly self-conscious, though it was true that the clothes he wore were not ideal for showing off the delectable body underneath. Not that Victor had actually seen much of it yet. He might have caught a glimpse a few times in the locker room of the gym at MIT while they’d been changing, though of course he’d kept his eyes averted out of respect for Yuuri’s dignity. Mostly.

What he didn’t want was for Yuuri to continue to feel all these painful doubts. He’d heard them from him before, too, in Boston. _Be my lover, Yuuri,_ he thought now. _I’ll show you there’s nothing at all for you to be worried about._ He was halfway to sending it to Yuuri on purpose, so strong were his feelings. Comprehension lit his eyes, and Victor was surprised to feel his own cheeks flushing. He decided to simply restate the truth, for now. “Yuuri, you’re beautiful. And sexy. I…well, if people don’t notice, then they’re blind.”

Yuuri reached a hand out and gently wrapped it around the one Victor was leaning on, his fingers loosely around the wrist. Then he began to trail them slowly up Victor’s shirtsleeve, brown eyes silently following their movements. Delicious shivers ran through Victor’s skin under the light touch. He wondered at how something so simple could affect him so profoundly; but then he realized he was receiving feelings and impressions from Yuuri, so subtly that that he hadn’t noticed when they had begun. It felt like being wrapped in the softest, warmest blanket. _Love,_ surely. Nothing else could be this sublime. Mixed with… _awe_? Victor had lost the career he’d been known for across the world, and Yuuri still admired him? He would enjoy reflecting on _that._ And…oh yes, _desire_ , too. All of these things, and probably more, swirling together. Victor wondered if he could send feelings to Yuuri as well – and suddenly realized that they would be the same ones. He wanted to laugh. How lovely. He placed a hand on Yuuri’s thigh and sent them anyway. It felt like completing a circuit.

Yuuri’s hand trembled as it slid across his shoulder, and his eyes looked into his own. “Victor,” he whispered.

 _[You’re the most beautiful person in the world to me. Beautiful. In so many ways.]_ Victor knew he was gushing, but he wanted to make Yuuri understand. They were barely even touching, but they were _communicating._ He received more waves of warmth in return as Yuuri moved his fingers down his shirt, to rest over his heart, where he pressed his palm. This time the sensations were stronger, traveling down to his groin; and there they burned, making Victor gasp. Yuuri was somehow filling him with his own desire, rapidly fanning the spark that already existed. He seemed surprised himself at what was happening, his lips parted and his eyes wide as he stared at his hand on Victor’s chest. Victor could see it rising and falling now as his breaths quickened. Determined not to be completely overwhelmed, and wanting to see where this would lead, he mentally gathered the heat inside of himself and imagined that he was pushing it back through Yuuri’s hand, into his body.

Yuuri let out a cry of surprise, his own breaths suddenly coming rapidly, his cheeks burning, pupils blown wide. His fingers resting against Victor’s shirt began to clutch at it convulsively. Then brown eyes met blue again.

Where the first wave had lapped, the second one crashed. Victor closed his eyes, tilted his head back and moaned, his own fingers digging into Yuuri’s thigh. How was this happening with barely any physical contact? It was…incredible. He was dizzy with it.  

He and Yuuri were sending images and feelings at the same time, stoking the heat higher and higher until it raged.

 _[I want you – everywhere, all over me,]_ Victor sent, not sure he was even making sense, but imagining the two of them impossibly tangled together.

_[I’m so hard for you.]_

Victor shuddered a breath, _that_ image kicking his pulse up to racing. Why wasn’t he touching Yuuri there, right now?…Because they were doing _this,_ and _this_ was unlike anything he’d ever known before. His cock throbbed and strained against his pants. There were so many things he wanted to do all at once. One more time, he pushed the feelings back into Yuuri. He was blatant with the images he sent, flashes of thoughts and desires and sensations. _[I want to suck you down. Be inside you. Have you inside me. Fuck with you all night and wake up next to you in the morning.]_

_[Oh my god. Oh…]_

Suddenly Victor, whose eyes were still closed, felt a hand at the back of his head, pulling him down into a blistering kiss. They pressed their bodies together, hands roaming and grabbing. Victor could feel sweat beading on his forehead. He gasped and moaned against Yuuri’s lips, and Yuuri did the same. When Yuuri shoved his tongue into his mouth, he met it with his own and then wrapped his lips around it to suck. Yuuri made a throaty noise and pulled Victor down with him until they were lying chest to chest on the bed. Remembering hazily how much Yuuri loved to grind, Victor began to thrust against him, seeking the friction available now they were parallel to each other; then with a sudden idea, he gripped Yuuri’s thigh and gave it a tug, guiding it up and over his hip. He felt Yuuri’s muscles flex, and then his leg was clenched tightly around him as he fell into rhythm with Victor’s thrusts.

“Yes, Victor, yes,” Yuuri kept panting through urgent wet kisses, his fingers digging into Victor’s back through his shirt. Did they really still have all their clothes on? Yuuri seemed to be too far gone to think of sending anything further via ESP, and Victor felt like he was almost there himself, though he still wanted to try. He slipped a hand under Yuuri’s shirt and let it glide over the tantalizingly firm planes and curves it encountered, sending thoughts of how he wanted to do this with his mouth and taste every inch of him, teasing out rapturous pleasure from his most secret places. The answer from Yuuri was a deep groan and harder thrusting, which drew echoing noises from Victor.

He broke off their kiss, gasping in a breath. “We’re still wearing our clothes,” he said with a little laugh as slowed his motions. “Maybe we should – ”

“No, please, don’t stop,” Yuuri begged, his eyes bright, pupils wide. “I’m so close. Please, Victor.”

Victor’s cock twitched at his words. This was how it would be, then. He captured Yuuri’s lips in another kiss and ground his hips lasciviously against him, then began thrusting again, Yuuri’s leg still wrapped around his hip. He’d never made love fully clothed before – the thought hadn’t even occurred to him – but oh god, it _was_ good. Perfect for the blazing wildfire they’d lit between them.

They were breathing into each other more than kissing now, and Victor felt himself hurtling toward a cliff, the friction too delicious to bear. He cupped a buttock through Yuuri’s jeans and started to knead it firmly. Oh…that was turning _him_ on, too.

Several more hard, quick thrusts, and Yuuri was making muffled cries against the hollow of his neck as his movements slowed and stilled. Victor bucked against him a few more times, continuing to knead his fingers into Yuuri’s ass, until with a groan he reached his own climax, vaguely aware of Yuuri nuzzling and panting against his neck.

They lay tangled together until their breathing evened out. Victor was glowing and didn’t have a care in the world in that moment. Then he felt gentle fingers smoothing his bangs back. They’d been stuck to the sweat on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, I…” Yuuri began.

 _Sorry?_ Victor thought in surprise. _For that incredible experience?_

“You…liked it,” Yuuri said, somewhere between a question and a statement, giving him a little grin.     

“Of course I did,” Victor said with a laugh, kissing his cheek. “I thought you might have noticed.”

“That’s OK, then.” And he was back to nuzzling Victor’s neck, the soft brown hairs of his bangs tickling his skin. “I thought I’d see what it was like if I tried ESP while we…well, while we did whatever we were going to do. I didn’t realize it’d be so…”

“Intense?” Victor offered, looking down at him. Yuuri nodded. “Yuuri,” he laughed again, stroking a hand across the back of his T-shirt, “I’d be very happy to explore more of that with you. Though we don’t have to do it all the time. I suspect it’s going to make for short sessions where neither of us will last long. We could use it a little bit, or not at all…or even do this again – believe me, I wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m glad.” Now Yuuri huffed a small laugh. “God, the things we said to each other. Or thought. Felt.”

“I meant them all.”

“Me too.”

“Including the part about you being beautiful.”

Yuuri just closed his eyes and whispered his name against his skin.

“Never any pressure, though,” Victor said, continuing to caress his back. “If there are things you don’t want to do, that’s fine.”

“I want to try everything you thought about, and more.”

“Oh,” Victor breathed. “Careful now, or I’ll be up for round two if you keep talking like that.”

“Really?” Yuuri asked with a grin.

“No…not quite yet. But why don’t we get these clothes sorted, and then we can come back here and have a proper cuddle?”

“OK,” Yuuri said, giving his neck a lingering kiss.

_Or, we could just stay here…_

“Come on,” Yuuri added, slowly disentangling himself and getting off the bed.

Victor stood reluctantly, already missing the intimacy of the moment, even though he knew they’d agreed to return to it. It wouldn’t quite be the same, but so be it; better to get changed first. They left their clothes in a pile to send with a drone to be washed the next day and quickly toweled themselves clean, Victor commenting with a raised eyebrow that it was more usual to get nude before sex than after. Yuuri just laughed and said they could fix that next time. He pulled on a clean pair of blue boxers and Victor dug out black briefs, and then they returned to the bed, making use of the small space by intertwining arms and legs.

Yuuri rested his head on Victor’s shoulder and skated a hand over his chest, looking up at him silently. Victor smiled and kissed the top of his head, hugging him, loving his warmth. Loving _him._ He considered telling him this; but he was becoming increasingly aware that the intensity of the connection between them, with the ESP, and the fantastic sex, had unleashed a whole flood of emotions inside of him, and he wasn’t sure he could make sense of it all. There were all the wonderful things he felt for Yuuri, but they were mixed with more troubled waters as well, he realized. And he’d felt so carefree just minutes before.

“Is something wrong?” Yuuri asked, a flash of concern in his eyes.

Victor ran a finger down his cheek. “What we just did together was amazing, Yuuri. I…it isn’t that; I just have a lot on my mind.”

“You keep saying so. What is it, Victor?”

He sighed. It wasn’t the most romantic of topics, but well…“I was falling into bad habits there for a while,” he began. “I suppose I have a tendency to drink when I’m upset. But I don’t feel like doing that now – being with you, trying to put things right between us, working on the ESP and what we’ve learned how to do…it’s all helped. I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for me.”

“But…?” Yuuri prompted him. Victor was pleased that there seemed to be no judgment or alarm in his eyes.

“I haven’t been thinking about my problems as much as I was at first – but they’re still there. What to do about my – _our_ futures. I guess I avoid mentioning it because I know it upsets you too, but…” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Oh Yuuri, sometimes it feels like it’s tearing me apart.”

A warm hand cupped his cheek. “I’m sorry, Victor,” Yuuri whispered.

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” he replied with a small humorless laugh. “It was my stupid fault for not realizing that the organization I’d dedicated my life’s work to was…was…” He sighed, feeling his eyes prick with tears; one slid down. It was ridiculous, he knew, after the wonderful things they’d just been doing; but maybe _because_ of that, he felt raw and exposed. The fingers on his cheek moved to wipe the tear away. “What was I even doing, Yuuri? Developing the blocking chip. Probably my sister Anna has ESP, not psychosis. How many more people like that have we operated on? Did I end up hurting them, when I thought I was helping – doing something brilliant? I…I feel _terrible_ about it. Has…has my whole life been a lie?” More tears fell, and he lay flat on his back and ran a hand through his hair. There – that was the awful heart of the whole rotten matter, though he’d been making feeble attempts to ignore it every time his thoughts drifted that way.  

“Victor,” Yuuri said softly, stroking his cheek.

He made himself open his eyes and look at this lovely man who was listening to him come unglued. “I guess this isn’t what you wanted to be hearing right now…”

“I can see it’s really been bothering you, and I can understand that.”

“Here I am, worrying about my future, when my past isn’t what I thought it was, either. I got so many things wrong. And I was _proud_ of them.” He grasped Yuuri’s hand, no longer trying to hold back for fear of upsetting him too much. He _needed_ this; needed for Yuuri to understand, and maybe to tell him he wasn’t the monster he’d begun to feel like inside when he thought of what he’d done. It wasn’t long ago that he’d even been offering to do it to himself and Yuuri. It seemed, now, like some awful disfigurement; like chopping off a limb.

“You tell me I’m too hard on myself,” Yuuri said, squeezing his hand, “but I think you’re doing the same. You’ve done wonderful research, and not all of it’s been on the blocking chip. I never even knew about that, and I still admired your work.” Victor drank in the warmth of his eyes. “And you’ve got such a big heart, Victor. All you wanted to do was help people incapacitated by a condition no one understood or could treat very well, and you _have_. Now they can get on with their lives.” He paused and stroked his hair with his free hand. “At least some of those people probably had genuine psychosis. And the others…you said the block could be removed. No permanent harm done.”

“That’s right,” Victor said quietly, feeling the storm within him begin to calm. “I can’t tell you how glad I am about that. Someday I’m going to fix what I did. Everybody; all of them.”

“I’m sure you will. I’ll help, if I can.” Yuuri grinned, and Victor was swept by a wave of utter adoration.

“You…you’d do that?”

“Seems like a worthwhile cause. I’d also want to help people learn how to use their ESP and not be frightened of it.”

“I’d definitely need your help for that.” Victor was surprised to find his mood rapidly brightening. “There’s no one who’d be better at it.” He kissed Yuuri’s hand and found himself smiling. “I love you, Yuuri Katsuki,” he said, the words tumbling out, unwilling to be contained any longer. “I love you so much.”

The smile Yuuri gave him in return was positively radiant. “I love you too, Victor.” Then he caught Victor’s lips in a long, soft kiss.

“Stay here in bed with me,” Victor murmured. “I know it’s cramped, but…I want to be with you. I’ve been wanting it for a long time. Please.”

“You don’t have to try to persuade me. I’ve been wanting it, too.”

“I missed you, Yuuri. I’m so glad we’re together again.”

He breathed a laugh against Victor’s lips. “You said that before.”

“It’s worth saying twice.”

Yuuri kissed him again. “I missed you, too,” he said, his eyes sparkling.


	48. Chapter 48

The first thing Yuuri was aware of was light against his lids. He blinked them open. It was shining through the crisscrossed diamond woodwork of the ceiling. Morning.

The next thing he noticed was that he and Victor were tangled together under a sheet. Arms and legs flung and curled. Victor was sleeping, his breaths gentle and even. Yuuri could feel hard bone and muscle against him, and warm curves. It was almost too good, too perfect, to be anything other than a dream. The first time they’d shared a bed; and now Victor was here with him as the sun rose. It seemed absurd, but he teetered on the verge of tears as he thought about all the times he’d longed for this, and all those weeks after he’d left Boston when he thought he might never see Victor again.

Then he remembered how Victor had said he loved him, and tears streamed onto his cheek – as if he hadn’t felt it inside of him anyway; as if calling him “my love” hadn’t been indication enough, he thought with a silly smile; but it had been so good to hear. Wiping his face with the back of his hand, he recalled how he’d told Victor he loved him back. He let out a quiet, shaky laugh as he sniffed and rubbed at his eyes again. Surely he was the luckiest person in the world.

And yet the peaceful expression on Victor’s face belied the turmoil he’d confided the night before. While Yuuri had been a little surprised at the timing of it, he hadn’t been surprised at what Victor had told him. He’d already assumed it was why he’d been drinking, though from what he could tell, that had stopped; and probably why he frequently seemed distracted, his thoughts a million miles away. Yuuri had been through it himself; but how much worse was it for Victor, bearing in mind the work he’d done for the Institute? Yuuri had meant what he’d said about helping him with the people who’d been operated on – but certain fundamental circumstances would obviously have to change first. For now, they couldn’t keep living like this, in limbo. Maybe another offline community would give them some safety; a place to rest and reflect…though that sounded all too familiar. It was what he’d been thinking when he’d arrived at Children of Gaia. And in a way, yes, it had given him those things, but it hadn’t led to any easy answers. Not that he’d believed it would.

Maybe, Yuuri mused, there were better offline communities out there. Though it felt more like a temporary compromise than a workable solution. They would have to talk. He felt sure that part of the reason why Victor was struggling was because they were drifting aimlessly with no destination or plan. He felt it himself; the pointlessness of his life still threatening in dark moments to overwhelm him, when he wasn’t busy with ESP or…

Or Victor. And the incredible sex they’d had the night before. If any more enjoyable distraction from their problems existed, he couldn’t think what it was. Yuuri felt his cheeks flush as he stared at the sleeping form next to him, aglow in the morning sun, the sheet draped over him almost artfully. He still reminded Yuuri of a classical statue that had come to life. _Look but don’t touch_ , he’d told himself, seemingly in another life. But he _had_ touched; Victor had wanted him to, and he wanted to keep doing it. To run his lips and tongue and fingertips over bare skin next time. He hadn’t intended things to end up as they had the night before, both of them with their clothes on…but the urgency of the moment had taken him by surprise. Grudgingly, though he didn’t like to think of the man in any context at all, he had to concede that when Crow had said sex with ESP would blow his mind, he’d been telling the truth for once.

Maybe that was what had made him so brazen. The way they’d shared their desires with each other, stronger each time, to and fro…His cheeks were burning now, his breaths catching, as he remembered. Though maybe Victor had been right – a little of that might go a long way. He imagined them revealing each other little by little as they undressed, taking their time to explore and savor…That certainly had an appeal, too.

He breathed out, wondering what Victor would make of him sitting here and working himself up like this. _It’d probably turn him on,_ he decided with a mental laugh. His blood was racing, and he was hard. Maybe Victor wouldn’t mind being awakened by a cock poking into his side either, then.

 _God, I really am brazen. When did that happen?_ It had to be due to Victor’s influence as well. He was the master of it, after all. Maybe he ought to be thinking instead about how fast they’d progressed to this state of affairs when they’d only just started kissing again…but as he’d told Victor, it felt right. As if they now had a green light to pick up where they’d left off in Boston; though after what they’d been through, and using the ESP as they were, it felt like their emotional connection had deepened; and sex was a natural expression of that. As long as…he got it right. Being educated about sex didn’t substitute for actual experience, which he was sure Victor had much more of than himself; but then, just about everybody his age did.

 _Well, we can have fun together while I learn._ It didn’t stop the tingle of nerves when he considered all the possibilities for embarrassment, but he trusted Victor. For that matter, he thought he ought to trust himself more, too. He hadn’t done badly last night, after all. Then there was the time in the office at MIT when Victor had turned up in that _kilt_ , practically _begging_ him to reach under it…and so he had, and would make no apology for it.

Yes, when it came down to it, he knew how to listen to his body and respond to its needs. Right now, for example…  

He leaned over and kissed Victor’s forehead. Eventually the long, pale lashes fluttered, and a pair of luminous blue eyes looked up at him. Then Victor’s face relaxed into a pleased grin. “Mmm, Yuuri,” he said. “What a lovely way to wake up.”

“Hi,” Yuuri said quietly, running his fingers through Victor’s bangs. He felt drunk with love for this man, and was suddenly helpless to marshal any thoughts about what to do next. Instinctively, he found Victor’s soft, willing lips, and they shared a slow, deep kiss. When Victor pressed his body closer to his own, Yuuri made a whimpering noise.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathed, drawing his name out, kissing his jaw, moving a hand toward where he ached to be touched.

There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other in surprise.

“I’d better find out what that’s about; I didn’t ask anyone from the lodge to come by this morning,” Victor said, getting out of bed and hastily tugging on jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt he pulled out of his backpack.

Disappointment was quickly replaced by apprehensive curiosity as Yuuri followed suit, reaching into his own backpack for clothes while he listened to the conversation between Victor and their female visitor, who was concealed from Yuuri’s view behind the door. She introduced herself as one of the hotel employees and said she’d come to find them. She’d overheard the desk attendant talking just a few minutes before about how he’d seen a notice on the local morning news over his chip showing a picture of the two of them taken somewhere in town, saying they were wanted criminals. He’d boasted that he’d called the number on the screen and had been promised a reward if the fugitives were captured.

Victor cried, “What?” while Yuuri almost tripped over his own feet pulling his shoes and socks on. How, how, how? They’d only just worked out _yesterday_ how to shield themselves from cameras, and they hadn’t had a chance to try it out yet for real. It looked like they’d gotten there too late to make any difference.

“I assumed neither of you had a chip, or you would’ve been out of here as soon as you saw it on the news,” the woman said. “If you’d been watching, anyway. You seemed like nice jacks, and a lot of people they look for ain’t never done anything wrong, everybody knows that, so…I thought I’d help if I could.”

“When was the news on?” Yuuri called.

“Uh…it’s usually on from seven thirty to eight thirty, which means he could’ve called anywhere from an hour and a half to half an hour ago. I didn’t think to find out what the time was…”

“Thank you,” Victor said quickly. He paused a moment, then handed her his key card. “I guess we’ll be leaving in a minute, and we won’t be coming back. I…thanks again for the warning. You might’ve saved our lives.” His words were quick and breathy as he turned around to scan the room.

“Sure thing – you two just better get out of here. Good luck.” Yuuri heard her departing steps on the wooden porch.

“Shit,” Victor muttered as he shoved clothes and personal items into his backpack.

“Get your shoes on, Victor. We don’t have time to pack everything.”

Victor shot him a wide-eyed glance and then sat down in a chair to do so, while Yuuri hastily packed his own things. The two cameras they’d just bought the previous day…they hadn’t thought to dismantle them and put them back in their boxes, which would have been the only conceivable way of taking them with them. They would have to stay here, along with the food in the fridge. Well, that was no great loss, though he took a precious moment to erase their memory. Then he shoved the little GPS-tracker box into a backpack pocket.

“Have you got your gun?” he asked Victor, going through his habitual procedure of putting the stun gun in one hip pocket and the laser gun, set to stun, in the other. He rethought this instantly, however, and took the laser gun back out, to keep at the ready.

Victor lifted his own gun to show him, then finished tying his shoes, jumped to his feet, and shouldered his backpack. “I can’t believe it,” he said, sounding dazed.

“Well I guess staying in these places is always a risk,” Yuuri answered. Then he paused. “Just going out the door could be dangerous. I don’t know how long it’s going to take anyone to get here; there might be someone watching already. I wonder if we could get out through one of these windows.” He ran to the one at the opposite end of the hut from the door and stopped again before opening it, pulling out the white stun gun and handing it to Victor. “Just in case that one you’ve got decides to pack it in completely. There’s no telling what damage you did to it, or if it’s going to get worse when you try to use it.”

“Thank you.” Victor took it and stood to the side while he opened the window, Yuuri quickly darting to the other side, so that neither of them was standing in view. They peered around the edges of the aperture, holding their guns up. If anyone was outside, they could not be seen, though Yuuri supposed they could easily conceal themselves behind the abundant stands of trees.

“I guess we can hope nobody’s had time to get here yet,” he said as he started to climb outside.

“Be careful,” Victor whispered.

Yuuri dropped to the ground without mishap, and Victor did the same behind him. They dashed across the open area and into the trees immediately opposite the hut.

“I’m not coming up with any ideas,” Victor said as they stood and peered out. “We need to get away from here – but where? They’ll probably come in vehicles, and we’re on foot. There aren’t any taxis we can catch here; but even if there were, I’m sure that’s the first thing they’d look for.”

“We should’ve come up with an escape strategy for every place we’ve stayed,” Yuuri muttered. “No one chased us, and I guess I just assumed we were safe. How niff can you get.”

“It’s no good if we’re running through forest or across chaparral. We’d have no chance of getting away.” Victor pulled something out of a pocket of his backpack that looked like a leaflet from the lobby of the hotel lodge. “There’s a map of the immediate area here, including hiking paths. Maybe we could take one, or veer off one, to get to Del Dios. There may be places to hide, and if we’re lucky, maybe we can find a vehicle.”

Yuuri felt sweat begin to break out on his brow. The town was small, and he couldn’t recall seeing any taxi stands there; though he feared that Victor’s earlier comment about them being spotted and pursued was a distinct possibility anyway. In their desperation, maybe they could persuade someone to allow them to hire a vehicle – if the owner didn’t instead decide to turn them in. The familiar dark tendrils began to creep through Yuuri’s limbs, and his throat constricted.

 _Not now,_ he told himself. _Worst possible time._

“Come on,” Victor said, placing a hand briefly on his arm. “This way.”

Yuuri forced himself to concentrate on maneuvering through the forest; they were using one of the paths on Victor’s map as a guide, but remaining a significant distance away, under the concealment of the trees. One time, however, Yuuri’s traitorous mind alighted on the specter of Crow, and what he might be waiting to do to him – both of them – if they were captured. A sick, dizzy wave of panic swept through him, and he almost tripped and fell.

“Yuuri, are you OK?” Victor asked, coming to a halt.

Yuuri stopped also, gasping for breath and shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say. “Anxiety…fucking useless…”

“Look at me,” Victor said, placing a hand on each of his shoulders, his gaze burning. “You can do this.”

Yuuri stared. Then he felt Victor’s mind somehow reaching into his own. Velvet, there with him, holding his hand, believing in him. Loving him. His heart warmed to the familiar presence. Suddenly it seemed ridiculous that anything else could matter, or that he could have been foolish enough to allow it to. He felt adrenaline racing through his system, but it was slowing now…draining away.

“Better now?” Victor whispered, his gaze still locked with Yuuri’s.

“You’re amazing,” Yuuri breathed. “Yeah, I’m…I’m ready to go.”

Victor gave him a smile; then they were making their way parallel to the path again. With no signs of pursuit, Yuuri had started to hope they’d left the hotel area in plenty of time to make an escape, when they reached a clearing at the same time as he spotted a speck in the sky almost directly overhead. If it was a bird, then it was hovering preternaturally still. He’d been nearsighted as a child, which had been corrected by surgery, though his vision had never been as good as someone who’d been born with perfect sight.

“Can you make out what that is up there?” he asked Victor.

Victor took one glance up at it, then brought Yuuri in a tackle to the ground with him as a blue laser beam erupted from the object above, blowing a small crater in the dirt where they’d been standing a moment before. The air smelled of ozone and charred vegetation. Little flames licked at blades of parched grass.

Yuuri turned his head to catch the object in his sight, and mustered all his concentration to send a ball of energy at it. There was a loud sizzling noise, then a fuzzy white glow, and it plummeted to the ground, where it bounced with a hollow metallic sound and rolled to a halt.

Victor stood to investigate, but Yuuri held out a hand to stop him. “It’s a drone,” he said. “I came across one of these in Boston. Laser guns don’t work on them.”

“Did you do that to it?”

Yuuri nodded. “Though if you hadn’t gotten us both out of the way just now…”

“We’re a good team,” Victor said somberly, looking at him.

“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed, unable to help himself from smiling. “Come on – we’d better hope it hasn’t told somebody where we are.”

They ran for another ten minutes, with Victor checking the map on the fly, saying the town should be about three more kilometers away. He’d barely finished stuffing it into his backpack pocket when two people dressed in dark clothes emerged from behind the corner of a nearby cliff face, a black man and a woman with short brown hair. They immediately took shooting stances, their laser guns pointed directly at Yuuri and Victor.

“Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air or we _will_ fire!” the woman shouted.

“Bravo Three Tango, have tracked down both suspects, currently armed and dangerous,” the man said.

Yuuri tried to send a ball of energy at the woman, to knock her over or otherwise disable her, but panic had shot into his veins again, and nothing happened. The harder he tried, the more flustered he became, until he was furious at himself for having such a useful ability and being utterly impotent with it. His fingers loosened their grip on the laser gun.

It was therefore with eyes wide in shock that he watched the woman, and then an instant later the man, double over as if they had received painful blows to the gut. They each cried out in surprise but didn’t let go of their guns. Yuuri quickly aimed his and stunned them both with it, and they slumped silently to the ground.

“Did you do that to them?” Yuuri said to Victor, who ran over to the agents.

“Yes,” he answered simply, picking up the gun that one of them had dropped and pocketing it, then causing the gun that the second agent had dropped to explode into sparks.

“I can’t make it work when I’m – ”

“I know.” Victor trotted back over to him. “You still got them, Yuuri. And look. Because we didn’t have to disable their guns, I can do this.” He tossed away the old damaged gun he’d taken from the agent at the commune and held the new one up. Then his eyes wandered to the setting, and he switched it. “ _Ublyudki,_ ” he hissed.

A lancing line of neon-blue drilled a hole in the rock face centimeters from Yuuri’s head, and they both cried out and broke into headlong dashes, Yuuri increasingly convinced he’d never actually awakened that morning but was in the middle of a nightmare. There appeared to be two shadows flitting from tree to tree behind them, keeping pace well enough to shoot, though he and Victor were weaving around pine trees, which bore the smoking brunt of the laser fire. He knew that any second could be his last. Could be _Victor’s_ last. His mind created images of holes burned into Victor’s chest, his back, his head. The beautiful blond hair, the graceful body. Shot down and murdered while Yuuri looked on. It was enough to freeze his blood and make him choke.

Struggling to force air through his throat to his lungs, wheezing and gasping, he collapsed to the ground. One of the shadows saw its chance a little too soon, jumping out from behind the concealment of a tree, and Yuuri managed to stun it. The second one took advantage while he was busy and fired, sending a brilliant blue beam straight at him. He tried to roll out of the way, but he knew light traveled at 300,000 kilometers per second; and by the time his eyes registered the flash, it was upon him…

In fact, he couldn’t understand why he was still thinking. He should be dead. The laser beam had surely hit him, but he hadn’t felt a thing.  

He stared blankly while the shadow – no, it was closer now, a woman with blond hair in a ponytail – looked in dismay at her gun as it emitted a shower of sparks; she dropped it and yanked her hand away. From behind Yuuri exploded a crackling white beam that hit the agent full on, expanding into a web that surrounded her. Then she, too, fell to the ground and lay motionless.

The blood felt like it was draining from Yuuri’s head. He stared stupidly for a moment, then whirled around on the ground to see Victor standing with his gun still pointed in front of him, eyes hard as ice, mouth set in grim determination. Yuuri had never seen him like this before.

“Victor?” he whispered quietly.

Victor seemed to thaw all at once. He ran over and knelt down next to him. “Did she hurt you? Are you OK?”

“W-What happened? What did you do?”

“The only thing I could think of. I couldn’t do anything in time to stop her, so I phase-shifted the laser-gun fire.”

Yuuri’s eyes opened wide. “You…oh my god.”

“I didn’t know if it’d work. If…if I’d lost you…” He breathed out and sniffed.

“Then you knocked out her gun, and stunned her?”

Victor nodded.

“How were you able to concentrate and do all that so fast?” _While I was turning into a puddle._

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just thankful I could. God, Yuuri…” He sniffed again. “I thought you were…never mind.”

Yuuri put a hand on his cheek, and he leaned into it. “I’m glad you’re on _my_ side,” he said. Then he stood up, ignoring the dizziness that washed through him, and Victor stood also. “We need to get out of here,” he said in an urgent tone. “They know where we are.”

“Can you run?”

“Of course. I’m not injured.”

Victor nodded, then turned and ran, cutting into the forest, Yuuri at his side. “I’m pretty sure the town was this way,” he huffed as they sprinted. “If we stay close to a path, they’ll probably be looking for us there.”

Yuuri kept telling himself to master the static that was threatening to take over his head. His own frustration at himself only made it worse. Victor knew how to keep his cool. He had to be able to do it himself. He’d already learned that the triggers for the anxiety seemed to be a feeling of being trapped with no way out, and fear of Victor getting hurt. He was determined to block out the associated images that kept trying to invade his mind. And every time fresh panic attempted to well up within him, he shoved it back down, telling himself to think about nothing but _running_ , keeping an eye out for obstacles on the path, and his gun at the ready for any more signs of pursuit.

When they got to the top of a small hill, Victor threw a hand out in warning and stopped, melting back behind an outcrop of gray rock, and Yuuri doing the same.

“What is it?”

“There’s something going on down there,” Victor replied, gazing through the trees to the valley not far below. “Some kind of truck, and a couple of…agents, I think…pulling things out of the back. I can’t tell…” He said something in Russian, his voice full of confusion.

Yuuri peered around him, inching a little further out to get a look.

“Oh,” he said in a low voice with a sudden smirk. “Oh yes. You gonks have made a big mistake.”

Victor looked at him in surprise. “What _are_ those things?”

“Hoverboards. They obviously didn’t learn any lessons in Boston. That might just give us a chance.”

“Hoverboards?” Victor echoed, wrinkling a brow at Yuuri and then looking back at the scene in the valley.

Yuuri saw two of them hovering a meter above the ground, silver shining in the sun. One for each agent that was visible, though there was no telling if there were any more people in the van. “Here’s a plan,” he said, watching them put on the metallic sandals that would adhere them to the boards. He quickly explained, and Victor nodded.

A moment later, one of the agents lunged backwards, landing on the ground as if he’d been winded. Yuuri could just make out his facial expression and hear his grunt of pain as he went down. Quickly Yuuri aimed and fired, mumbling a curse as he missed; but the dazed agent was in no position to spring to his feet and run, and Yuuri was able to stun him on the second try. They took out the other agent in the same way. A third agent jumped from the front of the van, looking around frantically while she held her gun ready to fire, and trotted to the back to find her colleagues on the ground. Yuuri and Victor quickly dispatched her as well.

“Let’s hope there aren’t any more of them in there,” Victor said as he left the cover of the outcrop and began to run down the slope toward the van.

Yuuri followed him, and as they neared the unconscious agents, he said to Victor, “Find their guns and – I don’t know, take them or explode them or something. You’re better at that stuff than me right now. I’ll check and see if there’s anyone else in the truck.”

He heard the sound of more guns erupting as he snuck along the side of the vehicle, forcing himself to find the courage to peer inside, ready to shoot or try something with ESP or whatever it took to defend himself. But he saw no one.

“There must only have been three of them,” Yuuri called as he trotted to where Victor stood amid the agents and three charred guns on the dusty ground.

“This one’s Adam,” Victor said, kicking at the gun lying next to a black-haired man. “He tried to kill me at the commune. If I ever see him again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Let’s hope Crow isn’t around here too,” Yuuri said.

Victor stared for a moment, obviously considering the unwelcome possibility. Then he turned his attention to the two hovering silver discs. “You’ve seen these things before?”

“I, uh…had a run-in with them in Boston. That’s why I said I was surprised it wasn’t in the news. I stole one off an agent, and another one chased me around Boston.”

Victor’s jaw dropped. “You…flew through Boston on one of these things?”

Yuuri couldn’t resist a pleased smile. “Yeah. Right over MIT and the river, and higher up than the tallest buildings.”

“ _Zaebis_ ,” Victor breathed.

“I know it sounds like fun, but when you’re being shot at…”

“You understand how they work, then?”

“Yeah – but Victor, I’m pretty sure they can be tracked. I don’t know how to open them up and disable the mechanism; I didn’t have time to look before. We’ll have to shield, or they’ll find us wherever we try to go.”

“I’m happy to try it. This may be the best chance we have to get away.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Yuuri bent down and removed earpieces from two of the agents. He tossed one up to Victor. “BCI. It translates thought commands directly into the board. Takes some getting used to, but it’s not hard.” He began to unclamp the metal sandals from around the nearest agent’s black shoes. “These are magnetic; they’ll keep you from falling off.”

Victor began to remove them from Adam. “How do we know these discs won’t run out of power mid-air and send us crashing down?”

“Self-charging battery with a magnetic coil,” Yuuri said, clamping the sandals around his tennis shoes.

“Wow. You’ve got it all worked out.”

“I interrogated an agent at gunpoint. He decided it was a good idea to talk.”

Victor huffed a laugh. “I’m glad you’re on _my_ side.”

Yuuri looked up and gave him an incredulous smile. After breaking down under the burden of his own troublesome anxiety again and again, it seemed a strange thing to hear.

“We’d better get away as soon as we can,” Victor said once he’d fastened the clamps over his own tennis shoes. “They’ll realize something’s happened to these agents, and come looking.”

“It should work in our favor that they won’t know we can block a tracker,” Yuuri said, willing a disc to descend until it was almost touching the ground, no doubt the one his earpiece was coupled to. “Maybe they’ll just sit back and think they’ll be able to see where we’re going. By the time they realize they can’t, we’ll be gone.”

“As long as we don’t forget to concentrate, every ten minutes at least,” Victor said as his own disc lowered. He trailed his fingers along its smooth metal surface in awe. “So…which direction should we head in, do you think?”

Yuuri recalled his rudimentary geographical knowledge of the area. “Well if we go north, we’re just going straight back the way we came, to where Palomar Mountain is. Further north or east and there’s a lot of desert. Mexico’s to the south. Too far west and we’re on the coast, where everyone will be able to see us. So…northwest?”

“I don’t even have a compass.”

“I’ve got the GPS system we bought yesterday. And you’ve got maps. I think we can manage between us. For now – ”

“I know. Let’s get out of here.” Victor placed one foot on the hoverboard, which made a clanking sound as the metal sandal snapped in place. Then he raised it back up. “Feels strong enough to hold, but you can still pull your foot away if you want to.” Then he positioned his other foot, and shifted until he seemed comfortable.

Yuuri stared at him for a moment. He wondered if he’d ever seen anything so strange or beautiful as Victor on one of these boards, blond hair flopping over his eye, red backpack practically glowing in the sun, his face a picture of eager anticipation. Then with a glance around the area to make sure no one else had turned up to threaten them yet, Yuuri stepped onto his own board, still with his gun at the ready, as Victor’s was. He began to guide the board with his mind as he remembered doing in Boston, rising slowly. It juddered a bit at first, like a washing machine on a spin cycle.

“I was told these are still prototypes,” he warned Victor. “So just be careful, OK? The board might not always respond how you expect.”

Victor had one arm sticking out like a surfer. When his board rose in the air, stuttering just once, his eyes lit up in delight. “Yuuri, this is…this is…” A stream of enthusiastic Russian spilled out.

“Glad you think so,” Yuuri said quietly to himself with a grin. “Come on – northwest should be this way, roughly.”


	49. Chapter 49

They remained relatively close to the ground while they adjusted to maneuvering the hoverboards by their thoughts, gradually picking up speed. Yuuri made sure he remembered to concentrate on shielding, and he attempted to expand the influence to Victor if he could, who remained at his side, with only a couple of meters between their hoverboards. Because right now, Victor was behaving like a ten-year-old for whom a lifetime of Christmases had come at once. As the threat of pursuit seemed to be diminishing, Yuuri allowed himself to relax and absorb some of Victor’s effervescence.

“Why did they not invent these _years_ ago?” Victor cried out, his hair whipping around his head. He’d put his gun away and had both arms splayed out as if to embrace the wind.

“Uh, because the technology didn’t exist?” Yuuri said with a smile, putting his own gun away, hoping it wasn’t a foolish move.

“Couldn’t hear that, sorry,” Victor called. “I wonder what else these things can do?”

Yuuri tried to keep an eye on their surroundings while he watched Victor as well. They were staying as close to the trees as they could, not rising any higher in case it made them easier to spot from a distance. Though the inevitable open patches of baked and scorched grass and chaparral made it difficult to always keep to shelter. If they could just put some distance between themselves and the agents, Yuuri thought, they could rest easier. Well, he could. He wasn’t quite sure what was going through Victor’s head apart from _Whoosh_ and…what was it he’d said earlier? _Zaebis._ The Russian equivalent of _wicked pissah_ , he supposed.

“Can you do any tricks with these?” Victor asked.

“What?” Yuuri called, the wind making it difficult to discern words. As in Boston, he had nudged his board to what he reckoned was about 60 kph. Victor had copied everything he’d done so far. “Tricks? No. I wasn’t exactly thinking about tricks at the time, Victor. I was in deep shit, you know? Like _we_ were just now.”

He wasn’t sure how much Victor had heard, and took a moment to renew their shield. When he glanced back over, Victor appeared to have his arms out for balance this time, with a look of concentration on his face. “What – ” Yuuri began to ask; but before he could finish, he watched Victor perform a loop-de-loop in front of his eyes, returning a little shakily to the position he’d originally held. He pumped a fist in the air and shouted something in Russian.

 _Oh my god,_ Yuuri thought, laughing.

“You try, Yuuri!”

“I’m not doing that.”

“What?”

“I…am…not.”

“When will you get another chance? It’s amazing!”

“I don’t want to crash!”

“You won’t.”

“ _One_ of us has got to keep a sensible head on their shoulders.”

Victor looked at him. “You think I’m not, just because I’m enjoying myself? I bet you even think I’ve forgotten to do the shielding all this time.”

“Um.”

“All right, let’s go be sensible for a few minutes. We’ll stop, check the map and the GPS, and decide where we’re going. Sound good?”

“Yeah, I’ll go for that.”

Yuuri had never figured out how to cut the power to the board and make it land on the ground, but he didn’t want to try it and risk not being able to get it back into the air. They entered a stand of trees that were spaced widely enough apart so that they could navigate between them, then drew up alongside each other about a meter off the ground, and checked their coordinates. If they carried on in the same direction, they would be headed toward the Santa Ana Mountains. Yuuri knew it was vital that they stay away from busy populated areas where they might be spotted and reported, while at the same time avoiding air traffic if they flew too high, because they would then show up on hovercraft and plane detectors for kilometers in any direction. Though the longer they traveled, no matter where they went, the likelihood of being seen would continue to increase. Yuuri mentioned it to Victor, suggesting they should find a place to stay somewhere in the mountains, and destroy the hoverboards when they were finished with them.

“That would be an utter crime,” Victor protested. But when Yuuri hasted to reply, he added, “It’s OK; I understand all the reasons why we can’t keep them and use them. But…don’t you think it’s just a little bit…cool that we’ve got them now?”

Yuuri gave in and smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

“Let’s take advantage of it, then, and do some sightseeing in these mountains ahead. We’re not in a hurry anymore, are we?”

“Sightseeing?”

“We’ve got a unique vantage point, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Show me what you’ve got in mind, then.”

Now Victor took the lead. Once they reached the mountain range, all they had to do was follow the direction of its spine, which they could do by briefly taking the risk of rising high in order to get a better idea of their position. Yuuri’s stomach kept sending him strange sensations as if he were on a crazy elevator. But he drank in the panorama of the green hazy forestland with streams cutting through it, bare patches of flat land stretching out further away. You could see the curvature of the earth if you went high enough…though the temperature quickly dropped as well. Then they were down among the cliff faces and canyons, dipping near foaming rapids and herds of deer. They’d slowed their speed considerably, with the twin purpose of being able to quickly change direction if they came upon anyone who might see them, and investigating the natural beauty of the landscape in a way Yuuri had only seen possible with drones before.

When they neared a high waterfall, instead of steering clear, Victor slowed to almost a halt and approached it, holding out a hand to catch the spume. The roar of the white waters echoed in the wide canyon. Yuuri’s heart entered his throat for a moment. They hadn’t been using the hoverboards for long, but Victor seemed sure of his mastery of the controls.

 _[Try it. It’s amazing!]_ He smiled in encouragement, his eyes shining.

Yuuri drew up, holding a hand out, and caught cool, wet mist on his skin all the way up to his elbow. It made him tingle.

 _[We can’t slip or fall from here. Watch!]_ Victor guided his board straight through the curtain of spray that enveloped the raging waters, translucent behind it for a moment until he emerged on the other side, laughing and combing a hand through his damp hair.

Feeling like he was answering a playground dare, Yuuri moved forward until he felt himself disappearing into the damp, then followed Victor’s path, drawing up to him and wiping fine droplets from his face. But he was smiling.

 _[This is fun.]_ Victor sent the feeling, looking at him fondly.

 _[Yeah, it is.]_ With a sudden wild laugh, Yuuri raced forward into the canyon, the wind blowing chill against his skin and clothes, and went into a loop-de-loop, struggling toward the end to right himself as his head continued to feel like it was spinning. _Whoah. Ground that way. Sky up there. Shit, I’d make a terrible pilot._

When he’d succeeded in finding his equilibrium again, he looked around for Victor – and saw him hanging upside-down from his hoverboard several meters away, his arms dangling freely, like someone swinging on a trapeze. Or someone whose feet were clamped to the underside of a giant metal disc.

“For fuck’s sake,” Yuuri muttered with a laugh.

_[Aren’t these the best inventions ever??]_

_[I think I might agree with you.]_

_[Are you sure we can’t keep them?]_

_[I’m sure. In fact, I think we’re approaching the town we were going to stay at, so we’ll have to get off soon and destroy them. I’m sorry.]_

Victor flipped his board upright, looking crestfallen for a moment. But then he slowed and drifted down to the ground, so that he was hovering just above it. They’d left the roar of wind and water behind, and it would be easy now in the still of the clearing to hear each other’s words. Yuuri joined him, and they looked at each other.

“I know…it’s a shame,” he said. “Believe me, I won’t forget this any time soon. The amazing things we did and saw…”

Victor let out a quiet sigh. “Yeah.”

“Well, if these gadgets exist now,” Yuuri added, unfastening the clamps around his shoes, “maybe they’ll be available for general public use in the future.” He removed his earpiece and left it lying on the board.

“Then I’d beg for a job with whatever company manufactured them and be their main PR man,” Victor enthused, copying Yuuri’s actions.

“You know, I could see you doing that.” Once he’d unclamped his feet, Yuuri jumped down.

“You’re sure there’ll be a place for us to stay in that town ahead…what was it called?”

“Silverado. Well there were several motels there when I was on vacation with my family. It was the only thing I could think of when we looked at the map, but we ought to be OK. Without a chip…”

“I know. Everything’s harder.”

Yuuri took his gun from his pocket and put it on the kill setting, feeling a chill run down his back. “Let’s try destroying them this way first. If it doesn’t work, I guess we could try ESP next.” He took several paces backward as Victor leaped off his own board.

“It’s a tragedy to have to do this,” Victor said as he joined him, raising his gun.

“I know.” There was a moment of quiet; like the calm before an execution, Yuuri thought. Then they fired, and the hoverboards exploded. As hot metal flew through the air, Yuuri twisted around and wrapped his arms around his head, kicking himself for being so niff. They should have been standing twice the distance back, at least.

When the clinks and thunks of metal against tree trunks and bright flashes of light faded away, Yuuri lowered his arms and looked for Victor. He was still standing next to him, though he’d also turned away to protect himself.

“That wasn’t very good science,” Victor mumbled. “I should’ve thought more about that. Are you OK, Yuuri?”

Yuuri felt an itch on the side of his upper arm and raised it to look. There was a scratch that was trickling blood. It wasn’t deep, however. He took his backpack off, got a carton of water out, rinsed the scratch, and found a bandage inside his first-aid kit. Then he stood and looked at Victor. “You didn’t get hit by any of that, did you?”

“I don’t think so.” Victor stepped toward him and suddenly bent to kiss his skin next to the bandage, the touch of his lips sending a shiver through him. “If that’s the only injury you have to show for everything you’ve been through today, I guess that’s not so bad.”

It all came racing back to Yuuri: the warning from the hotel attendant. The drone, the agents. Both of them being shot at. The certainty that there was no escape; that Victor would be killed. The debilitating anxiety, making him a liability. He pulled Victor into an embrace, suddenly needing his warmth, the _feel_ of him, more than anything else in the world. And then they were kissing, holding each other tight. Yuuri wanted to cry with relief that they’d both escaped and were standing here now. He thanked whatever higher power existed for this as he pressed his lips against Victor’s, then buried his head in the crook of his neck.

“Yuuri,” Victor sighed, stroking a hand through his hair. “Come on, baby. Let’s find someplace to rest.”

***

Yuuri _did_ remember this town from his childhood. Only, his memory didn’t quite match what existed here now. It seemed smaller somehow, though maybe he was the one who’d been smaller, he realized. But surely it hadn’t been quite as down-at-heel either. Most of the buildings were constructed of long dark-stained wooden planks with faux-western-style frontages declaring “Betty’s Café,” “Bear Springs General Store,” “Hank’s Hardware,” and the like. The bar actually called itself a saloon. An…Irish saloon. There were shamrocks painted on signs next to the door. Yuuri wondered how that worked.

His nervousness grew as they walked down the main street – which seemed to be where all the stores were, with nothing but small wood-paneled houses lining smaller streets off of it – and he hadn’t yet spotted a motel. They were shielding now, and so were not as concerned about cameras catching them; but that didn’t mean, Yuuri thought, they were going to be parading their existence to the locals any time soon. They’d agreed not to stay in a motel with human desk attendants again, for one thing. For another, someone might recognize them, if the Institute had distributed pictures of them in the news or through other channels. He added a third thing: they’d spent less than a day on learning how to shield; and as a scientist who preferred to replicate an experiment as perfectly as possible several times over before he tentatively declared it a success, he did not feel comfortable with that. There was no way to tell how well they really were hiding themselves from the cameras here.

“Do you remember where this motel was?” Victor asked.

“Just that it was on the main street somewhere. Maybe it’s down here.”

They continued to take in their surroundings as they walked, nearing the edge of the built-up area. “I’d like to be able to give that hotel attendant who came to see us this morning a medal,” Victor commented. “If she hadn’t warned us…”

“Did you catch her name?” Yuuri asked.

“No. I was worried about other things.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Yuuri huffed a little laugh. “I think we were lucky, too, that when they came after us, they weren’t prepared for what we could do. Between that and what I did in Boston…well, they’ll be more clued up next time.”    

“Let’s hope there won’t _be_ a next time.”

Had they permanently eluded the agents? Would they be able to keep Crow at a distance, unable to reach out to either of them? Yuuri felt dubious, and he pushed the unsettling thoughts away. At the same time, he saw a red-brick building at the edge of the town with a wooden painted sign at the top that declared “The Grand Hotel.”

“I guess that’s where we’re going,” he said. “I don’t remember that – I’m sure it isn’t where we stayed – but it looks like it’s all this place has to offer. There’s a Cloud café next door to it; that could be handy.”

“No more desk attendants,” Victor reminded him.

“I’m not sure we’ll have a choice, but we can find out.”

“Why don’t we visit the store first and buy some food. We could ask there about the hotel. Or if they know of other places nearby, if we don’t want to stay there.”

Yuuri agreed, and they reversed their direction down the street, heading back to the Bear Springs General Store, an establishment that turned out to be full of knick-knacks and shoddy paintings and overpriced western-style goods aimed at tourists, but which also sold some basic provisions. This was one of those stores, they noted through the window before they went inside, that displayed its CCTV live footage on a monitor near the door to dissuade would-be thieves. Victor offered to stay where he was and watch it while Yuuri went in to check that the shielding they thought they were using really was working. Yuuri told him it was an excellent idea. Once inside, however, he imagined what it would be like to learn he’d made some terrible mistake; and not only were they not shielded now, but they hadn’t been blocking the trackers during the whole ride on the hoverboards, and even now the agents were closing in…

He had a moment where he thought he might fall to the floor, gasping for breath, next to a stand full of different flavors of candy canes. That would be so undignified, he told himself, trying to make light of it. Then he glanced at Victor through the window at the front of the store, who was giving him a thumbs-up sign, and this time he wanted to collapse in sheer relief. He wasn’t sure how much more of this emotional roller-coaster he could deal with in one day.

As he’d hoped, there was a human being at the counter to check out his purchases once he’d put what he needed in a basket. Part of the supposed old-world ambience of the place, he figured. An elderly man who perhaps did a few hours a week here after he’d retired. He told Yuuri that The Grand Hotel was the only such establishment in the area, and that it had a desk attendant. It had seen better days, he said, especially in the heyday of the town back in the mining boom of the nineteenth century. But it would do for a night, and he could do worse. Yuuri paid for his food, thanked him, and went outside to relay the information to Victor, who was clearly not pleased but said the man was right, surely it would do for a night.

They walked in silence back down the main street toward the hotel. Yuuri began to wonder if they were both experiencing an adrenaline crash. After fleeing the agents in the forest, and then the giddy excitement of the ride here, he supposed it wasn’t surprising. It felt as if Victor was closing himself off like he had when they’d escaped the agents at the commune, and Yuuri wondered if mentally labeling him the cool, collected one out of them both had been a bit simplistic. This itinerant existence as fugitives, moving from one motel or hotel to another, was poisonous for him, Yuuri thought. And for himself, too. Sooner or later, it was likely to drag them both under unless they did something more proactive. Maybe some time researching in that Cloud café while they were here would help, he decided.

As they approached the hotel, Yuuri got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was this town far enough away from the Hotel El Bosque and Del Dios for them to be safe – from the attendant inside this building, and everyone else here who’d seen them? The “wanted” notice on the local news that morning hadn’t been sent over the Cloud all the way out here, had it? They’d traveled about 90 km, by his reckoning. Any further than that, and they would have been taking greater and greater risks with the hoverboards. And yet he would happily have gone all the way to Canada if they could…if Canada didn’t also expect everyone to have a chip, that was. He felt stretched thin by all these worries, and could understand why Victor might feel the same, on top of the other concerns he had.

They arrived at the hotel and, continuing to renew their shield, went into the lobby, which reminded Yuuri of something out of a down-on-its-luck theme park with a wild west corner. The exterior possessed a kind of rustic charm, with the hand-painted sign and the Victorian-style brickwork; but inside there was a less enthusiastic veneer, as if it hadn’t been important to try as hard here. The floors were bare wood, and one large solid-wood desk covered with dents and scratches greeted any guests who came in. Picture frames hung on the scuffed white walls, displaying mustachioed men and women with bustles, and advertisements for corsets, baldness cures, and baking powder. It was too bare, and too wrong, all at once. Yuuri was startled when an attendant in modern dress entered from a back room; somehow he’d been expecting a clerk with slicked-back hair, round glasses, and suspenders.

 The middle-aged man, wearing a plain white work shirt, gave off a mildly uninterested air as he checked them in under new pseudonyms (William Hopper and Alex Rusnak), gave them their key cards, and wished them a pleasant stay. It being Yuuri’s turn to pay, he had covered the bill for a night, hoping to discuss plans with Victor later.

The wooden stairs, covered by a strip of carpet that might once have been a deep maroon color but had been worn to a shiny greyish-pink in the middle, creaked as they walked up to their first-story room. Yuuri liked old places with character; it had been one reason why he’d chosen the apartment in Eagle Hill. This place was just old, however, without the character.

“So…‘Alex Rusnak’?” he said as they walked down the quiet hall. It had a slightly musty smell, mixed with some kind of lemony disinfectant.

Victor shrugged. “ ‘Alexander’ was my grandfather’s name. ‘Rusnak’ means ‘Russian’ in Polish. Spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“You know, ‘Alex’ kind of suits you,” Yuuri said, looking at him with a smile. “Do you speak Polish, then?”

“Just a few words…What about ‘William Hopper’? Where’s that from?”

They arrived at their room and Yuuri swiped his key card. “An obscure Hollywood actor from a hundred years ago. Spur-of-the-moment for me too.”

“So does that make you William, Will, or Bill? Or…Billy?”

Yuuri laughed. “ _Not_ Billy. Maybe Will.”

The bare wooden door creaked as Yuuri opened it, and he suddenly had the ridiculous notion that they were penetrating to the heart of a haunted building. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly foreboding, with the plain white walls and sunlight shining through the windows, both in the hall and here in the room; but there was a neglected air to it, as if people had come and gone for years, lost in their personal business, without thought for the simple surroundings that momentarily suited their basic needs. If he opened a closet door, Yuuri thought, he might not discover a ghost, but instead some forgotten old suitcase or jacket on a hanger or umbrella propped in the corner, coated with gray dust and a cobweb or two. It did nothing to lighten his mood – or Victor’s, from the look of it. They removed their backpacks, and Yuuri examined the instant-coffee-making facility on the desk while Victor perched quietly at the end of the bed, staring at the net-curtained window, which was framed by some extraordinarily ugly and ancient-looking pumpkin-orange heavy fabric curtains patterned with green and yellow blobs that looked like the kinds of ring-stains glasses made on tables.

Flicking the kettle on, Yuuri picked up a coffee sachet, examining it for a use-by date. When he glanced down and noticed that someone had kicked a hole in the plaster of the wall, which had not been repaired, his stomach sank. At the same time, he heard Victor sigh behind him. He turned to see him fiddling aimlessly with the top of his backpack, put the sachet down, went over to sit next to him, and gave him what he hoped was a gentle look of concern.

“I know it’s not exactly the Ritz.”

Victor turned his head to gaze back at him, then looked down. “It’s not that.”

“It _is_ pretty shabby, though. I screwed up when I picked this town.”

“It wouldn’t matter if it was the French Riviera.” Victor bit his lip and put a hand on Yuuri’s knee, giving it a light squeeze. “I’m not coping very well with this, I think. I’m sorry, Yuuri.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to say, because we only talked about it last night. Just…another hotel…though I know we don’t have much choice at the moment, especially with what happened this morning.”

“I’m getting kind of fed up with it too,” Yuuri confessed. He paused, wondering if now was a good time to make the suggestion he’d been considering. “I saw there was a Cloud café next door to the hotel. How do you feel about having some lunch and then going over there together to do some research on offline communities?”

 Victor took this in. Then he lifted his hand from Yuuri’s knee and stroked his chin in contemplation. “I was wondering about that too…though I’m not sure. I can’t say I’m wildly enthusiastic, but it’s better than what we’re doing now.”

“I guess I feel about the same. Believe me, I don’t want to go someplace else that turns out to be another version of the last one I was at. But…maybe if we do our research, we’ll find something that’s more suitable for us both. What do you think?”

Now Victor gave him a little smile. “I think there’s no harm in looking.”

“I know there are people out there still searching for us, but there are so many of these communities that…well, the original analogy I used was that I wanted to be able to hide like a leaf in a pile of other leaves. We might stand a chance of that.”

Victor nodded. “Let’s see what we can come up with, then.”

***

The Elkhorn Project was what they ended up contemplating several hours later. They were sitting in the far corner of the room, which was almost empty except for a couple of teenagers and the usual desk attendant. These cafés tended to be much alike, Yuuri thought, with an underfunded-library feel to the stark, worn furnishings and equipment that was sometimes too old or damaged to work properly. But they searched diligently throughout the afternoon on adjacent screens, looking at maps and reviews and relevant news sites, and discussing their findings. Often one of them would find a community that initially seemed promising, only to discover that it was not accepting new members, or it was religious or cultish, or like Children of Gaia it eschewed technology or promoted sexual practices that didn’t appeal. They bookmarked the Elkhorn Project as they continued to research, then returned to it in the end as the most intriguing possibility. It was named after the Elkhorn River that flowed through it and was just over five hundred kilometers northwest of Silverado, which would get them clear of this area and hopefully well away from agents. It was also larger than Children of Gaia, and had been established for decades, with longtime residents as well as new, of all ages. On their Cloud site they described themselves as a loose-knit democratic community of individuals, living without a chip, who relied on each other. Their philosophy embraced modern eco-friendly living and tech both old and new, it said; and the photographs and video clips showed people wearing ordinary modern clothes and living in adobe houses of the type Yuuri had seen at Gaia. No tin huts were visible.

“But how can we know we’d be accepted there?” Victor mused, leaning back in his red vinyl seat with his arms crossed against his chest as he stared at the screen in front of him. “You can’t exactly fill out an application, from the look of it.”

Yuuri thought back to when he’d arrived at Gaia. “We might have to offer to do any available work, at first. But maybe they’ll decide we’ve got skills that’d be handy there, too.”

“Like what? I think it’s unlikely we can go be scientists there.”

“But they have tech. That’s a start. _You’re_ good with that stuff, at least. And me, well, I can cook; and at the last commune they taught me how to make adobe bricks, and then how to make houses out of them.”

Victor made the chin-stroking gesture again. “It’s hard to think about filling my time with those things when they’re not really what I want to do,” he said thoughtfully. “It’d be different if it was, say, a vacation on a dude ranch, where you’d deliberately gone for a limited time to do something different. This…this would be open-ended. I’d be…afraid of getting caught someplace where I never wanted to permanently stay.”

Yuuri hummed in agreement. It was dark outside now, and the harsh white lights overhead made Victor’s skin look like alabaster. “I kept thinking the same thing at the last commune. Eventually, though, I came up with a plan, even if you completely blew it out of the water by turning up.” He twitched a smile.

“Ah, Yuuri. You should know by now that I have a habit of doing these things.” Victor gave him a little grin in return.

“So I wouldn’t want to see this as a permanent solution either,” Yuuri carried on. “More of a step forward, maybe? We’ve talked about what we’d like to do in the longer term, so we could keep those things in mind.”

“Removing the blocking chip from the patients who’ve been operated on by me and others at the Institute,” Victor said. “I don’t know how I’d ever do it, with them after us, but I’ve got to, Yuuri.”

“And I still want to help you, and them,” Yuuri replied, seeing determination gleaming in his eyes. “Beyond that, I’d want to educate the public about the Institute, and how they and the government spy on people using their chips. I’d explain about ESP, too. Though I’d have to find a better way than broadcasting over the radio, because most people out there who’d listen would just think I was another nut.”

Victor’s brow clouded. “Radio? Who listens to that? Who even _has_ one?”

“You’d be surprised,” Yuuri laughed, thinking back to when he shared a boxcar with Saratoga Steve. Was that a touch of nostalgia warming his heart already? What a strange experience it had been.

“I thought a return to MIT or a similar university would be on your wish list too.”

“Well, yeah, sure. If it was possible. I’d have to work out how I could research ESP within the field of neuroscience. At least I can demonstrate some physical effects now.” 

“So could I,” Victor said with a small smile, raising an eyebrow. “You’d have to let me be your partner.”

Yuuri dropped his voice just as Victor had. “Only if you show up in my office wearing that amazing suit again.”

“I’d show up naked, if you wanted.”

Yuuri blew out a breath. He probably would, too. “That would be too distracting,” he managed to say.

Victor chuckled. “You know, I’d been wondering if it’d be possible for us to work as scientists in another country. Someplace where we wouldn’t have to have a chip.”

Images of a little white lab in the middle of dense jungle, or half-buried among desiccated sand dunes, passed through Yuuri’s mind. _That_ wasn’t exactly what he’d hoped for when he’d trained at MIT. “It’d be hard,” he admitted. “Especially with those agents looking for us. We’d never be able to call too much attention to ourselves, which would have implications for our research. If it was our only option, though, I’d consider it. But we’d still need to settle someplace for a while, I think. It’d take time to look into the possibilities and make arrangements, especially without easy access to the Cloud, or ways to make calls that can’t be traced.”

“OK,” Victor said with a nod, “so we try to get settled somewhere for now. This Elkhorn Project…it’s a good distance away. How do we get there? Shame about those hoverboards.” His eyes sparkled, and Yuuri saw the delight he had taken in their ride earlier. “A taxi would only take us a fraction of that distance. And we’d need documentation to rent a car, or get a train or a bus ticket. I suppose we could run all the way…”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “I don’t think we need to do that.” He paused as an idea struck him. Tired of holding his neck in a kink to talk to Victor, he shifted in his chair to face him, his arms folded across the top of it. “I never told you how I got here from Boston, did I?”

Victor shook his head. “It was in my mind to ask you sometime. Stowed away? Managed to rent a vehicle without documentation? You…you didn’t steal a car, did – ”   

“No,” Yuuri said with a hint of amusement. “I hopped freight trains.” He smiled when Victor’s jaw dropped. “That’s how I learned about the radio, too. Come to think of it, I’ve hardly heard any music since.” He sighed. “I miss it like you wouldn’t believe.” He sang quietly, unfocusing his gaze as he thought of the words, “I’m burnin’ through the sky, yeah/Two hundred degrees/That’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit/I’m trav’ling at the speed of light/I wanna make a supersonic man out of you.” Victor looked…endeared? Yuuri gave him a crooked smile.

“Doctor Dance,” Victor whispered as his expression softened. “I miss that, too. And who else would teach me a song using ESP? I should’ve guessed it was you, just from that.” His eyes shone as he added in a voice that shook slightly, “That meant so much to me, Yuuri. That song, those words…just when I needed it most.”

Yuuri’s chest filled with warmth. Of course. He thought for a moment, combing his memory for the lyrics, and sang in the same quiet voice, his heart fluttering when Victor joined him, “I’ll be there, with a love that will shelter you. I’ll be there, with a love that will see you through.” Then they smiled at each other like a couple of lovesick fools.

“What about the one you taught me?” Yuuri said. He closed his eyes, concentrated, then hummed the catchy refrain.

“Glazunov’s ‘Autumn.’ I danced ballet to it.”

“Oh…I would’ve loved to see that. I bet you were beautiful.”

“I wondered sometimes if I would’ve been happier doing something physical and creative like that for a career,” Victor mused. “If I hadn’t decided to spend my life…” His voice trailed off, and the radiance in his face faded until he once again appeared stark under the bright lights. He didn’t have to finish; Yuuri didn’t need ESP to know what he was thinking. _If I hadn’t decided to spend my life developing technology that would be used to rob people of a wonderful ability they didn’t know they possessed._  

Yuuri’s smile fell away and he looked down, recalling simpler days not long ago, before they understood truths like this. _God, Victor, what’s happened to us? We had everything, right there in our hands._ He could see why Victor was troubled, because it was often the same with him: thoughts of loss and fears about the future always present like lead weights, ready to pull him painfully back to earth. “How about this,” he said. “You help me look up maps of this area and the one we’ll be headed for tomorrow, and train routes and timetables, and I’ll tell you about hopping trains from coast to coast.”

Victor made no secret of his curiosity, and listened with rapt attention, hardly doing much on his screen as his eyes were fixed on Yuuri. He said several times that he couldn’t believe what had been happening to him while he himself was sitting in a university office or sleeping in his apartment, and wished he’d known, though Yuuri wasn’t sure what difference it would’ve made. When he got to the part about traveling in the boxcar across the border with the other refugees, and hiding from the authorities in the old mercury mine workings, Victor reached a hand out and rested it on his forearm.

“I…” He looked lost for words. “Yuuri…I’m sorry you had to go through that. It sounds so lonely, so…desperate.”

“A lot of those people were, too,” Yuuri said quietly. “Life in the United States, without money or a chip, is shit, Victor. I can understand why so many of them want to get out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Don’t Stop Me Now”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM) by Queen


	50. Chapter 50

Yuuri took another sip of his Guinness, the little golden harp on the glass gleaming under the faux gas lamps that hung from the wooden beams across the ceiling. There was no mistaking the unique taste. It was rich, full-bodied, with a strong barley note and a tang that lingered on the tongue. He’d never quite decided whether or not he was a fan of it.

They’d come here at Victor’s suggestion after a bite to eat in their hotel room, hoping that an Irish saloon might have some live music at night. It had been quiet so far, however, with few customers, as seemed to be the case with many of the establishments in town. Yuuri idly wondered if people had been moving away, or tourists were no longer coming, or both. They each had purchased a pint of Guinness, which was apparently the house speciality, seeing as how there were a dozen or more advertisements for it around the saloon, and had made it last as they sat at a round wooden table and took in their surroundings. Yuuri had laughed at first at the wall-to-wall wooden décor; the words “Ireland,” “Blarney” and “Sláinte” hand-painted in gold across the rafters; the bar trimmed with green baize. It smacked of trying too hard, he thought, and he told Victor he was sure they’d be able to spot pictures of leprechauns if they looked hard enough. It didn’t take long.

He was three-quarters of the way through his pint when a foursome sitting at a table across the saloon removed some instruments from cases – a fiddle, a flute, a banjo, and a guitar – and started to play. They weren’t half bad, Yuuri thought as he listened to the softly lilting melody. It struck him as being more atmospheric than something intended to be danced to, though he knew they wouldn’t be able to attract attention to themselves anyway by doing that here. He and Victor made the Guinness last a while longer, sitting in silence while the music played. They stole frequent glances at each other, and the fingers of Victor’s hand found Yuuri’s, caressing and interlacing. Yuuri didn’t know how something so innocuous could be so sexy, but he followed Victor’s lead and felt his pulse begin to throb. It had been a long day, but it wasn’t difficult to find energy for _this_.

When they’d finished their drinks, they walked arm in arm back to the hotel, both carrying their backpacks with their free hands. Yuuri looked forward to the day when he didn’t have to haul all his belongings around with him everywhere he went. The hotel was tucked into the shadows that seemed to spill more heavily at the edge of the town, with one feeble yellow light not entirely illuminating the sign at the top, and two smaller ones on either side of the main door. Yuuri watched Victor’s face fall as they opened it and stepped inside, wanting again to apologize for his poor choice of accommodation. Maybe if he’d picked something closer to Los Angeles, it would’ve been more modern, better maintained…but the area would also have been densely populated, and people flying through the air on hoverboards would have attracted just a smidgen of attention, he reckoned.

Once they were in their room, Victor sat down on the bed, then took his shoes and socks off and began to rummage in his backpack while Yuuri turned the kettle on. This time he found a lonely bag of peppermint tea, which he thought looked more trustworthy than the sachets of ancient-looking freeze-dried coffee.

“So it’s definitely a plan?” came Victor’s voice, and Yuuri turned to look at him. “Catching – hopping – a train tomorrow?”

Yuuri was in the middle of removing his own shoes and socks, having deposited his backpack at the foot of the bed. The question caught him off guard, because they’d discussed this, and yet it sounded as if Victor was vaguely hoping there might still be a chance to change their minds. And also because Yuuri had been reflecting on the fact that they were really going to be sharing a proper bed meant for two people. He’d been looking forward to it – so why did it feel so awkward? Was Victor expecting him to strip seductively, maybe? He thought it would be a tall order in jeans and a T-shirt; definitely not the clothes he’d pick for that purpose. Or was he waiting for Yuuri to join him there on the bed so he could pull him down and make love to him? Was that what he wanted _Yuuri_ to do to _him_? Was Victor even in the mood for it at all? Oh god, he was starting to give himself anxiety about _sex with Victor_ of all things. That had to make him the biggest gonk in the world, because he knew how much he wanted it at the same time, and surely the two feelings shouldn’t be able to coexist like this.

He straightened up, now barefoot, the gray carpet scratchy against his feet, and leaned back against the counter as the kettle heated. “Are you still OK with that?” he said in response to Victor’s words.

Victor was absently fingering the drawstring on the top of his backpack, which was on the floor next to him. He answered without looking up. “I agree it’s better than living in a hotel, and it’s certainly more practical.” Now his eyes strayed to the window; he’d closed the curtains, which were a sickly-looking blot across the pale, scuffed wall. Then he sighed. “At the same time, it feels like giving up the fight somehow…like admitting I’m not going to be working in science again. I know what we said about discussing the future and everything. But…” He folded his hands in his lap, his eyes still downcast. “…it frightens me, Yuuri. Being a scientist is my whole identity. It’s who I am. Without it…? Maybe I’d get too stuck into other things at this new place. Fixing tech like Phichit does, or building mud-brick houses. And I wouldn’t be that person anymore.”

Yuuri had searched briefly for a mug to put his teabag in. He’d only been able to find a worn-looking hospital-blue plastic one, which should’ve been illegal to put in the room for guests to use in the first place. And he was not going to ingest a plastic-infused drink. Besides, Victor was falling to pieces in front of him. Fuck the tea.

“Victor…” he said gently, “…that’s how I’ve been feeling, too. I know it hurts. But…I’ve got to say, for you, something needed to change anyway, because of your work for the Institute. I know you wouldn’t have wanted to carry on with that in ignorance of what was really going on.” Victor’s eyes were on him now. “But anyway, we agreed not to think of the offline community as a permanent solution, right?”

Victor turned back to looking down at his hands in his lap. “It’s what brought us together, too. I was…wondering if you’d still want to be with me if I wasn’t a scientist you could look up to anymore…”

Yuuri left his position at the counter and went to sit next to him on the bed. Brown eyes searched blue, wondering how these fears could’ve taken root when they were so far from the truth. Maybe, Yuuri thought, he wasn’t the only one who fought anxiety on occasion.

“You’ve got far more experience with the ESP, too,” Victor added. “What have I got to offer anymore?”    

Yuuri huffed and shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re asking that. Do you remember, I said to you once, ‘Don’t ever be sorry for being yourself. That’s all I’d ever want.’ _Yourself._ The things you just mentioned – they’re important, but they’re not who you are. A career, an ability. And I’m going to take this opportunity to mention that what you’ve been doing with the ESP is stunning.” He laughed quietly. “So don’t give me that shit about how I’m some master because I’ve got more experience with it.” Before Victor could reply, he added, “I know, though, that, um…I have a tendency to want to run away from stuff that bothers me. And I know it isn’t helpful. But I have no intention of going anywhere without you now. I promise. In fact…I’ve been afraid maybe _you’d_ want to leave eventually, if we couldn’t settle on some plan for the future that worked. I know you came out here expecting, or hoping, for one thing, and this is what you ended up with…”

“Oh Yuuri,” Victor said, taking both of his hands in his own, “of course I want to stay with you. Can you doubt it? I wanted to stay with you when we were still in Boston. But then I got the most wonderful surprise of my life, finding out that my…mysterious ESP friend was you all along.”

Yuuri smiled and squeezed his hands. “Me too. I never would’ve dreamed…” He felt like he was drowning in the nicest way, under the gaze of those clear eyes. But there was still a somber look in them that spoke of hurt just beneath the surface. Yuuri knew he didn’t have the power to heal it for him, here and now, but…that didn’t mean he had to stand by and do nothing. “Will you let me see if I can help you like you helped me this morning, when…when I was upset, and we were trying to get away?”

Victor gave him a faint grin and nodded, a spark of curiosity leaping into his eyes as Yuuri looked into them deeply, struck suddenly by the intimacy of the simple act. There was a reason why you could only do this with a person for so long before the compulsion to look away was overwhelming. It was an act of trust; of being vulnerable. Letting the other person in and not being afraid of it. And he could feel Victor doing that for him now. He placed a hand on either of Victor’s shoulders and reached his consciousness out to the presence that was Velvet, sending the warmth of his love like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. _This is what it feels like when I think of you. When I’m with you. It’s so wonderful, sometimes it fills my heart to bursting._ He wasn’t trying to send the thoughts, focusing on the feelings instead.

He left himself open to receiving impressions from Victor, and felt surprise from him – like the sensation of a warm bath on a cold toe, maybe, until the toe and then the foot and everything else got used to it. Then there was relief…and contentment. It was like flying on hoverboards next to each other; like singing snippets of their favorite songs together. Victor placed his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, and he felt the energy of their connection deepen, circling in his abdomen, fluttering in his chest. He wasn’t sure it would be possible to be any closer if they were joined in sex; though the conscious thought of it made him realize that his body had been sending him escalating signals that it yearned to try. He could already feel a smoldering warmth between them. Victor’s breaths had quickened and his cheeks were flushed. Yuuri tilted his head up and leaned in to capture his lips, loving the sound of the breathy moan Victor made as clasped his arms around his back and pressed him close. Yuuri caressed a cheek and ran a hand through his hair.

His thoughts quietened as he allowed himself to drift on sweet sensation. Had he really been worried about this? Here, in Victor’s arms, was where he was meant to be. He licked at Victor’s bottom lip and their tongues touched, then Victor’s penetrated his mouth to tease and caress.

 _[Yes, Victor. More,]_ Yuuri sent, fingers clutching in his hair. He wondered briefly what this would turn out to be like. Whether they would be able to find the patience and self-possession to go slow and make it last. Or maybe that would have to wait for other times, after they’d chased the flames of their first passions. The ESP seemed to have the power to fan them into an inferno. He remembered that incredible dream he’d had the night when Velvet had first contacted him. Maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched…maybe he really could shove his self-consciousness aside enough to let that happen, and revel in it…

“Yuuri…” Victor said, pulling away a little and looking at him, lips parted. “Did…did I get a…memory of a dream from you just now?”

Yuuri had to kick his brain back into conscious thought. “Um…I wasn’t trying to send anything, but…I was thinking about one just now, yeah.” He could feel his cheeks burning. How much of it had he accidentally shared?

The blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Was it like…this?”

Images came into focus: the dream he’d replayed over and over in his mind during idle moments, though he’d never been in much of a mood to pleasure himself while he’d been staying in his hut at the commune. The setting was right – they were on Victor’s bed, that night Yuuri had seen the ring; but this time it wasn’t there to stop them…and everything was from _Victor’s_ vantage point. Torsos bare, Victor on top, asking him what he wanted to do. Soon he saw himself twisting and moaning below, like he’d never felt anything so good in his life. There was a tidal wave of emotions from Victor as he moved inside him – love…awe…and, along with the evidence in front of him that Yuuri was in bliss, a primal desire to _fuck_ him and make him _his._ The Yuuri who was watching it all in his mind was gasping and hard, amazed at the glimpse into these powerful and private feelings, but also confused by the bizarre experience, wanting to know how it was possible.

“It’s exactly the same,” he breathed. “Only…only, I’m seeing it from your eyes.”

“I was seeing it from yours just now,” Victor answered, his expression seeming to mirror Yuuri’s own jumbled thoughts. “Toward the end, I wasn’t sure if I was asleep or awake. It felt strange…like the dream was coming from someplace else, outside of me. Then…yes, I remember. It was just a few minutes after that when I started to feel like I was…” He swallowed. “…losing my mind. I called for help…” He paused, and dropped his voice to a soft whisper, his eyes searching Yuuri’s. “And then the teacher was there. You. I thought of you as that. Then later on you were Zvezda, the Russian word for ‘star,’ because you were so bright and beautiful.”

Yuuri stared at him, his jaw hanging open, trying to take it all in. At first he was enchanted by the nicknames, and wanted to smile and start kissing Victor again. Then he thought about how they’d had the same dream. How Victor said it felt like it had been _sent_ to him, as opposed to something his own mind had created; while Yuuri, on the other hand, had never been in any doubt who the author of the fevered imaginings had been. Then, minutes later…

No. Surely not.

He tried to speak, but could only manage gulping breaths.

“Yuuri – what is it?” Victor asked in concern.

He scooted back a little, planting his palms on the quilt of the bed, his heart pounding. “V-Victor, what if it was my fault? What happened to you…”

“How could it be your fault?” Victor asked, shaking his head.

“What if my dream…awakened you somehow? I don’t mean, as in woke you up. I mean – ”

“I know what you mean. Yuuri – ”

“If I forced this on you somehow…took away your career, made you a fugitive…” His voice climbed higher with every word. He didn’t know how it could be possible, but what did he understand about how these things worked? It was _plausible_ ; unlikely to be a simple coincidence. Would this mean he would have to take responsibility for what had happened to Victor, even if it hadn’t been intentional? He couldn’t bear it…

“ _Yuuri_ ,” Victor said again, putting his hands on his shoulders and looking at him firmly. “Listen to me. We don’t know, do we? What if the ESP happened first, and that somehow sparked the dream in both of us?”

Yuuri blinked. That wasn’t likely. There seemed to have been a stimulus-response relationship, he thought, and it hadn’t been that way around.    

“Anyway,” Victor continued, “so what if you _were_ the cause? Maybe it would’ve happened anyway. Maybe I was predisposed to it somehow, like…like Anna, possibly. Some epigenetic change might have occurred. I don’t know. But does it matter?”

“Of course it does. I would never have done that to you, not on purpose – ”

“I know. But…you’re acting like it was something bad. I’m getting used to this ability, and I think I like it. I like the things we do together with it. Imagine how much more there might be to learn. Maybe I should be _thanking_ you.” He ran the backs of his fingers down Yuuri’s cheek with a smile, and Yuuri’s eyes fluttered closed briefly while he savored the feel of it. “I’m just glad I’m with you again, Yuuri. That’s the important thing. And…that was the hottest dream I’ve ever had. My first wet dream in years.”

“Same,” Yuuri said with a blush and a smirk. He thought for a moment. “I have a nickname for all the presences I work with, too. Yours – ”

“Wait,” Victor said, placing a finger over Yuuri’s lips, then pulling it slowly away. “I wonder if I can guess.”

Yuuri smiled and watched him concentrate, focusing on the Velvet he knew and loved, and feeling almost drunk after Victor’s reassurances that if it had been his fault he’d suddenly developed ESP, he didn’t mind. The anxious energy suffusing him moments before seemed to be transmuting into energy of a different kind, and it was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing Victor and kissing him again. _Think of Velvet,_ he told himself.

A flash of understanding lit Victor’s eyes. “Something to do with feel,” he said in a soft playful voice.

Yuuri could sense his mind searching, and he opened himself to him.

“A soft feeling,” Victor murmured. Then he grinned. “Something you…stroke?” he laughed. “Not a cat – ?”

Yuuri smiled and looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “Velvet,” he said, reaching up to touch his cheek.

“I like that,” Victor whispered, taking it in. “A lot.” He took the hand that was on his cheek and gave the knuckles a soft kiss. “What do you feel like right now, Yuuri? Will you share that with me?”  

Yuuri breathed out, the sensation of Victor’s lips on his skin sending tingles down to his groin. He mentally dipped into the pool of desire there and pushed the feelings into Victor, understanding what he was doing this time, and that Victor wanted it. He felt a spark of power as he watched Victor react; his fingers clenched around Yuuri’s hand as his mouth dropped open and his pupils widened. He seemed momentarily disconcerted, taking several breaths and shifting where he sat. Then he looked into Yuuri’s eyes; and, knowing what Victor wanted to do, he silently assented and prepared for the wave.

When it came, it was liquid desire through his veins. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned against the pleasure, whispering Victor’s name. If he’d been physically touched, it could hardly have been more sensual. And this was… _everywhere._ All over and inside. He opened his eyes and gave Victor a heated look.

Victor released his hand and leaned close. His bangs tickled Yuuri’s forehead. “We finally have a king-sized bed,” he said throatily.

“You noticed that, did you?” Yuuri tried to say lightly, though his voice trembled with desire.

“I want to make love with you. If – ”

“I want that too,” Yuuri said quickly.

Victor smiled, looking relieved. “Why don’t we go have a shower together, then?”

“OK,” Yuuri said, kissing him again and then standing up.

Victor did the same, and led the way to the bathroom, shedding his clothes as he went. Yuuri copied him, conscious that they were crossing a new line with each other, and suddenly feeling exposed as he pulled off his boxers. But Victor had not lingered to stare; he was adjusting the showerhead when Yuuri entered the room.

It was as plain and dingy as the bedroom, but that hardly mattered. _He_ was the one who was staring, at Victor’s magnificent chiseled ass. Toned muscles up his back and down his thighs, and trim waist. Sensing his presence, Victor turned around with a warm smile, perhaps hoping to put him at his ease. Yuuri swallowed down a dry throat, feeling a flush across his cheeks and neck. Fine silver-blond hairs ran in a V-shape down Victor’s abdomen to a small thatch of curls. His cock, curved slightly upward, jutted out from it, as perfectly formed as the rest of him. Yuuri thought of a dozen or more things he wanted to do in that moment, from taking Victor in his mouth to immortalizing him in a marble sculpture. He wouldn’t be able to do the latter; and as for the former…

“Are we doing pistols at dawn?” Victor asked, but there was a sparkle in his eyes, and Yuuri laughed, forcing himself to look at the floor, his face positively glowing. He suddenly felt fingers on his chin, lifting it, and realized Victor had come to stand in front of him. “Yuuri, I know I’ve said it before, but you’re beautiful. I’m so lucky to see you like this.” He tilted his head down and gave him a soft kiss. Yuuri felt their cocks brushing against each other. Self-consciousness and desire warred within him. “Are you ready to get in?”

He nodded, removed the bandage he’d placed earlier over the scrape on his arm, and they stepped into the bathtub together, the warm water jetting down in a soothing spray. Victor took the lead, and Yuuri was happy to follow, the inescapable fact of his inexperience weighing more heavily upon him than he’d expected it would. But Victor made it seem like it was a joy to be together in this little room, washing each other’s hair and backs, and it felt to Yuuri like his nervousness was gradually being rinsed away with the suds. The soap made a good lather, and the glide of it over Victor’s skin was delicious. Yuuri made a pretense at first of getting Victor extra-clean with it, but knew he was fooling no one as he trailed his fingers with increasing boldness over Victor’s chest and hips, then pressed himself against him and kneaded his ass, reaching up hungrily for a kiss. Victor breathed his name, placing a hand on either side of his neck.

“Want you,” Yuuri said against his lips.

“Let’s get out, then.”

Yuuri continued to move a hand over a buttock, moaning as his cock twitched against Victor’s. “Shower sex,” he said brokenly.

“Believe me, I’d love to,” Victor replied, catching a breath. “But what I’d love even more is to get you into bed. I’ve been dreaming of it for months. Will you…?” He left the rest of the question unsaid and gave Yuuri an earnest look that was hard to resist; not that he wanted to. He nodded and they each grabbed a towel as they got out, quickly drying themselves off. Victor wrapped his around his waist and returned to the bedroom, Yuuri copying him, again battling a sudden feeling of self-consciousness. He couldn’t work out if it was due to the fact that he wasn’t used to being nude around someone else, or if he was embarrassed about his body, though he’d told himself plenty of times that there was no longer any need to be. It had been so much easier to lose his inhibitions with ESP. The… _physicality_ of what they were doing seemed to be what kept getting in the way, somehow; yet that was also the basis of the new connection they were making between them.

Victor produced a bottle of lube from his backpack and put it on the bedside table, Yuuri thinking with amusement that they could use his own when they were finished with this one. He put a couple of condoms next to it. Yuuri hadn’t expected that.

“Do you normally use those?” he asked, unsure how to phrase it any more tactfully. Sexually transmitted infections had been virtually eliminated, though he knew some men didn’t like the idea of making a mess. After the episode in the office at MIT, however, Yuuri didn’t think Victor was one of them, but then that hadn’t been penetrative sex.

“I thought you might want one,” Victor said, sitting down on the bed. “I didn’t want to make assumptions.”

“No, I…I’m good.”

Victor’s face brightened. “Come here then, sweetheart.”

Yuuri gave him a crooked smile, deciding Victor had a liking for pet names. He’d never imagined anyone calling him that, but it sent a tingle through him. Padding across the short distance between them, Yuuri came to stand in front of him, then cupped his cheek and bent over for a kiss, a mixture of awkwardness and desire swirling inside of him. He felt Victor’s fingers gliding over his back and ran his palms across his chest, pausing to circle and tweak at a nipple, which elicited a gasp. When Victor attempted to pull him closer, however, he reached down to undo the loose tie holding the towel across Victor’s waist, looking at him first to ask silent permission. Victor seemed surprised, but then smiled and leaned back to give him better access.

Yuuri soon had the material out of the way and, noticing that he was staring again, sank to his knees, hearing another gasp from Victor as he realized what he was doing. Yuuri wanted to swallow him down and listen to him come undone, though it seemed a drastic thing to jump to just now, and it made him wonder briefly. Did he have a thing for giving blowjobs, or…did he just like pleasuring with his mouth? At any rate, the thought of it turned him on, so he decided to follow his instincts. He started at a knee and licked kisses up the inside of one muscled thigh, then did the same to the other, Victor’s hands coming to rest on his shoulders as he made soft contented noises. Yuuri nudged his thighs open further and cradled his balls in his palm, giving them a tug and a knead, then moving in further to mouth them as well, using his lips and tongue, hearing Victor moan his name. Taking this as encouragement, Yuuri wrapped his other hand around the base of Victor’s cock, drawing it downward, and licked a stripe up the underside, then proceeded to give it thorough attention, exploring and feeling and tasting, bobbing his head and sucking, while he continued to knead his balls. He did what he thought would feel good for himself, but also what his few previous encounters had shown him other men tended to like.

Victor was clearly liking it, too. “I knew you’d be good at that,” he sighed, placing a hand at the back of Yuuri’s head. He whispered encouragement, slipping into Russian several times, and his panting breaths were music to Yuuri’s ears. He felt like he was on solid ground – in control, being a good lover for Victor, taking him to the edge. He’d soon take him over it, and…

“Fuck, baby, fuck,” Victor chocked out, squeezing Yuuri’s shoulder. “You need to stop, or that’ll be it.”

Yuuri sat up, surprised. “Don’t you want me to – ”

“It’s good. It’s wonderful.” Blue eyes were shining at him, and his cheeks were rosy. “But I want to be with you, up here. I want to make you feel good, too.” When Yuuri didn’t respond straight away, he said more quietly, “Isn’t that…what you’d expect someone else to want to do with you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” was all Yuuri could manage.     

Victor looked at him for a moment, then said quietly, “Come here, my love, and I’ll show you.”

Yuuri followed the gentle instruction in his voice and climbed onto the bed, lying on his side next to Victor, who stretched out next to him. “Something’s bothering you, I can tell,” he said, running a finger lightly over his cheek.

Yuuri thought. “I don’t know…”

“Is this still what you want to do? Like I told you, there’s never any pressure. If – ”

“No, it’s not that,” Yuuri said quickly. “I do want this. I’ve wanted it for a long time. But I’ve never done it before, and it’s very…intimate. I guess I’m not used to that.”

“Penetrative sex takes trust,” Victor said, continuing to stroke his cheek. “It _is_ intimate.” His voice lightened. “But if it’s really what you want, I can think of a few ways to help you relax.”

“You can start by kissing me,” Yuuri said, grinning, and Victor didn’t hesitate.

Yuuri never expected to feel such a mixture of emotions the first time he did this. They hadn’t gotten far enough before for him to notice any of his insecurities surfacing, but he felt sure they would have, just as they had here. It was the idea of being so open with each other, he thought. Not that he didn’t want to be. But it felt frightening, as if some part of him wanted to say, _Respect me. Care about how I feel and what I need. Because if you don’t, trying to do this with you is going to break my heart._ He was surprised at how hard it was to trust Victor in those ways – and if he couldn’t trust Victor, he’d never be able to trust anyone. It had been a problem before when he’d suspected him of being an agent, yes; but that was behind them now.

His idol. His research partner. The man who fell head over heels for him during a drunken dance and persevered with his attempts to start a relationship, despite what must have seemed like confusing rejections. Who helped him through bouts of anxiety time and time again. His Velvet. Who had stayed with him even though he’d lost everything else. The very fact that they were both here together, alive, was a miracle after everything they’d been through.

If he had to have a partner in all these troubles, Yuuri decided, he couldn’t think of anyone better. There was nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to run away from, where Victor was concerned.

They continued to kiss, long and slow. Victor was sharing his feelings with him, partially through ESP, but also through the tender ways he touched. Their tongues curled together. Yuuri pressed himself against Victor’s hard body, seeking friction, beginning to lose himself at last to what was building between them. “Make love to me, Victor,” he said, looking at him earnestly.

Victor’s eyes burned into his, and then he was kissing Yuuri deeply while deft fingers reached down to unfasten the towel that was still wrapped around his waist. Yuuri allowed it to fall away, and Victor flipped them over so that Yuuri was under him. Their gazes locked. Yuuri could feel the heat inside Victor and welcomed it as it streamed into him. He shared it back, their chests rising and falling. Then he reached a hand behind Victor’s head and drew him down for another kiss.

“Yuuri, _lyubov moya_ ,” Victor sighed, breaking away to trail kisses along his jaw and throat and then across his chest, his hands roaming and caressing. Lips and tongue and teeth explored; and when Yuuri looked at what he was doing, he thought he’d never seen anything so sensual. Victor seemed to be taking utter delight in his body. Yuuri flinched when he got to his thighs, conscious of the stretch marks there, but Victor covered them with open-mouthed kisses, darting hooded glances at him; and ripples of desire traveled up his spine.

Had he really been self-conscious about exposing himself to this man? Yuuri thought incredulously. Every one of his actions was saying, _I love and accept you as you are._ That was the biggest turn-on of all. Somehow he’d gotten to this point even while his thighs were splayed shamelessly around Victor’s kneeling form.

“God you’re gorgeous,” he heard Victor breathe – and then he began to stroke Yuuri’s cock while laving his tongue around the head, taking a few experimental sucks.

Yuuri cried out, the sudden stimulation almost too much. He was back to the heated desperation he’d felt in the shower. _Forget anything else we planned. I want to come like this. Now._ He moaned Victor’s name, his voice breaking.

Victor pulled away, his warmth vanishing. Yuuri looked around in confusion and saw he’d grabbed the bottle of lube and was lying next to him again. “I want you so much, baby,” he said. “Do you want me to prepare you? Have you ever done this before?”

“Yes to both,” Yuuri said quickly. “I mean, I’ve…on myself…”

Victor hissed out a breath. “The images you’ve just put in my head…”

“I bet you do it too,” he ventured.

“Of course. It feels good.”

Yuuri’s cock twitched as he thought about it. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Maybe a pillow underneath you would help.”

Yuuri grabbed one and canted his hips up, slipping it under him with a nonchalance he did not feel. All the times he’d dreamed of doing this with Victor…and yet his mind kept trying to make him imagine that this was like lying in a doctor’s office, or on an operating table, exposed, waiting to have something undignified done to him.

He felt Victor’s eyes on him as he squeezed a generous amount of lube into his hand and on his fingers. He seemed to have an idea of how he was feeling, because he bent over him and kissed him softly, then said, “I love you, Yuuri, and I want this to be good for you. If anything hurts, or you want me to stop, just say.”

Yuuri’s heart fluttered at his words, and he nodded, Victor holding his gaze while he shifted to lie further down at his side. He felt a finger slip between his buttocks and circle his entrance. Instinctively he tensed, closing his eyes.

A hand stroked across his stomach, and he felt a warm kiss pressed there.

_[Relax. You’re safe. I’m going to take good care of you.]_

Yuuri drew in a deep breath and let it out. And another. When he glanced down at Victor, his smiling eyes looked back at him, and then there were more kisses on his abdomen. Yuuri felt heat begin to coil inside of him.

 _[This is going to feel so good,]_ Victor sent. _[I can’t wait to show you.]_

 _It already does,_ Yuuri thought, watching Victor’s long pale bangs spill over his forehead as his kisses became more fervent. Suddenly he realized he’d been so distracted that he hadn’t noticed when Victor’s finger had entered him. His attention was drawn to it now, moving in and out in a gentle rhythm. Yuuri was used to doing this to himself, but letting someone else go there…and yet Victor looked ease with it; comfortable. As if telling him there was no need to feel embarrassed or afraid.

“You’re so good for me, Yuuri. It’s amazing to see you like this.”

Yuuri sighed and tried rocking his hips slightly with Victor’s movements. Oh…that was nice.

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He felt Victor shift so that he was sitting next to his hips. While he continued to move his finger, he took Yuuri’s cock with his other hand and began to stroke it with the same rhythm.

Yuuri moaned and bucked his hips. This wasn’t anything like the humiliating examination his anxiety had been conjuring for him. Victor was taking care of him; _wanted_ to take care of him; loved him, and…seemed to love his body, too. It was _turning Victor on_ , that was the clear truth of it. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes gleaming with desire. Yuuri could feel some of it spilling into himself, through the ESP it seemed, though neither of them was concentrating on it in any focused way. It was there in the background, simmering.

“Ready for another finger?” Victor asked quietly, both of his clever hands still busy.

“Yes…please…” There, he was _begging_ for it, and Victor would know how much he was enjoying this. It was all in the open now. With the second finger in, Victor pushed them deeper, and when they found his prostate and began to rub against it, Yuuri fisted the sheets and moaned. Victor’s other hand hadn’t stopped stroking his cock. It was too much.

“Victor…” he said, gripping his hand to still it. “…it’s…it’s good. Please – now…”

“Are you sure?”

“Come here,” Yuuri said firmly, willing the fire in his eyes to brook no argument. Victor did as he asked, his fingers sliding out; he slicked them around his cock and then and positioned himself above Yuuri. Yuuri felt suddenly cold and empty, which seemed ironic after he’d been nervous about being touched there.

He felt Victor’s cock nudging at his entrance, and his thoughts fell away as he once again began to give himself over to sensation. Fingers carded gently through his hair. Blue eyes looked steadily into his. “Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered. As he complied, he was aware of being open now; exposed again, with nowhere to hide. _Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to run away from,_ he reminded himself.

And somewhere deep inside, he was surprised to feel something blossoming. The beauty of the trust he was placing in Victor, which he’d fully earned, many times over. The trust that Victor was no doubt placing in him. Where they met in the middle was a warmth, a _freedom_ , unlike anything Yuuri had ever felt. He’d never expected that, and let out a shuddering sigh as the realization of it sent ripples of delight through him. He’d never let anyone this close before. Had always been afraid of it. But now he was getting to share this moment with Victor _._ He squeezed his eyes shut and was aware of a tear rolling down his cheek.

Victor, who’d just begun to push into him, instantly stopped, and wiped the liquid away with his thumb. “Yuuri – ”

“It’s OK,” he whispered with a smile, cupping a cheek. “I’m just thinking about how much I love you. How special this is. How good it feels…how lucky I am.”

Victor bent over so that his lips were just above Yuuri’s. “ _Zvezda moya_ ,” he whispered, stroking his cheek in turn. “I could say the same.” Then he kissed him, soft and slow, as he continued to push.

It felt strange; not like Yuuri had imagined, having been used to fingers there and the occasional toy when he’d felt adventurous. There was an initial stretch and burn, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable. And Victor was taking his time, watching keenly for any signs that he needed him to stop. Yuuri decided he liked a cock there even more than fingers. It was softer, fuller; the perfect shape. And thinking about what Victor was doing to him, entering his body slowly but surely, was fueling his own desire. The very fact that Victor _wanted_ this and Yuuri had decided to trust him to do it was…incredibly arousing.

“How does it feel?” Victor asked. “Should I – ”

“Faster,” Yuuri said quickly. “It’s OK. Please.”

“Whatever you want, my love,” Victor said, brushing kisses across Yuuri’s cheek and jaw, trailing them to his earlobe. Yuuri felt more of the same sensations as before, until Victor stopped, and he realized he must be all the way in. While he gave his muscles a moment to get used to it, he sought Victor’s lips and caught them in more kisses, running his hands over his back, wishing he could bottle this moment and keep it forever.

Pinned under Victor’s weight as he was, Yuuri still had leverage to make thrusting movements with his hips, with the aid of the pillow underneath him. He let out a soft moan, pleasured by the slick feel of his body around Victor’s hard shaft.

Victor breathed out in surprise, but took the hint and began to move himself, tentatively at first. Yuuri noticed his arms shaking slightly and caressed his hands over them. “Are you – ”

“Just…excited,” Victor said, almost as if he were ashamed, though he smiled. “You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed about doing this. And you feel…incredible. I…I want to make this last, but…”

“It’s OK,” Yuuri said, smiling back. “Faster…my Velvet.” He whispered the name seductively.

Victor let out a shuddering breath and Yuuri kissed him hard, moving his hips in time with Victor’s thrusts. It was the most intimate, most exquisite dance they’d done together, and Yuuri felt like it was lifting him up and up to some dizzying height. He clung tight to Victor’s back, his legs folded as far as they would go. His cock throbbed, and he thought about touching himself, or asking Victor to, though he was already close to the edge, and that would probably be enough to take him over. He was hardly aware of the moans spilling out of him as they rocked together. Victor’s face was pink, sweat beaded along his hairline, and he was gasping. Then suddenly he stopped, and Yuuri looked up at him in confusion.

“Call me selfish, but I don’t want this to end yet,” Victor said, trying to get his breaths back. Yuuri met his gaze, which seemed to be almost pleading. “Can I ride you?” he asked softly.

Yuuri’s jaw dropped, and a frisson went through him. He hadn’t expected anything other than a straight trajectory to a climax, but then he’d never considered that anything else might be desirable, either – or better, even. His inexperience was talking again, he thought. Victor knew what he was doing. He’d follow his lead. Though…oh. That meant, presumably, that he himself would be playing a more active part. He discovered he liked the idea, even if it made him nervous too. Was he ready for that? This was only his first time, after all. And…again, oh. He felt a pulse of heat in his groin as he realized it meant _he_ would get the chance to be inside _Victor._

“Yes,” he said simply, his eyes shining.


	51. Chapter 51

Victor pulled out of him, and once more there was that feeling of emptiness. Yuuri watched him reach for the bottle of lube, then lie down on his back. “Would you prefer me to do this myself, or do you want to…?”

“I…” Yuuri told himself to find his courage. They were pulling a lot of barriers down between them tonight, he thought. “I will, if you like.”

The eagerness in Victor’s eyes was unmistakable. “Oh, yes.” He smiled as he handed the bottle over. As Yuuri got up on his knees, Victor took the pillow that had been below him and placed it under his hips. Then he lay silently, blinking, his expression soft and encouraging. “Be gentle with me,” he said with a little laugh. His tone was playful, but underneath it Yuuri couldn’t help but wonder if he was also experiencing the bare intimacy of their first time doing this and finding it was taking some getting used to.

Yuuri squeezed some lube onto his palm and fingers, replacing the bottle on the table and turning to look at Victor with a reassuring grin. As if he really needed it. Or…maybe he did. But his eyes were sparkling. He lifted a leg back in an amazing display of flexibility when Yuuri came close. And yet Yuuri was still hesitant, pausing to stare at Victor’s cock and balls, that strange mix of awkwardness and desire churning through him.

“Come here and kiss me, baby,” Victor said quietly, and Yuuri leaned over to meet his lips. He felt a hand take his own and guide it downward, where it paused near Victor’s entrance. Then, while their tongues tangled together, Victor’s fingers pressed his own against it, gently.

 _[Please. I want you,]_ Victor sent.

Yuuri worked a finger inside without breaking the kiss, the erotic feel of it feeding the coil of heat in his abdomen. Soon he’d inserted a second finger, finding the pleasure center up and in and stroking back and forth over it. Victor closed his eyes, arched his back, and breathed Yuuri’s name, mixed with words in Russian. Watching him come undone like this, because of what he was doing to him, was driving Yuuri to the brink again. He kissed Victor’s chest and swirled his tongue around a nipple, pressing his cock against Victor’s hip, his fingers still working between his legs. He felt drunk with it all.

“I could come like this and be happy,” Victor said breathily, “but I want to feel you inside me. Let me get up.”

Yuuri slid his fingers out and drew back, slicking them over his cock while he watched Victor build a pile of pillows against the headboard. He batted at them, plumping them up, then looked at Yuuri, his pupils wide and black. “I need you to sit here with your legs crossed, if that’s OK. Oh.” He grabbed a couple of the pillows and put them on the mattress, so that Yuuri would be sitting on those as well as having some at his back. Wondering what Victor had in mind, he scrambled over and did as he’d been asked, not liking the uncertainty but willing to try whatever he had chosen to do, trusting they would both enjoy it.

Victor was on his knees near him, looking down at him with such fondness that Yuuri smiled and felt himself blush, as if he could have any shame left after what they’d been doing, and how he was sitting. Victor smiled back, and then in one fluid move he straddled Yuuri, his knees on the bed, stroking his cheek with one hand while the other wrapped around Yuuri’s cock and lined it up with his entrance.

Yuuri whispered his name, struggling to believe this was really happening. His hands lingered lightly around Victor’s waist.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Victor said, leaning his forehead against Yuuri’s. “I just…need a minute or two.”

Yuuri watched the smooth muscular chest in front of him rise and fall. His eyes dipped downward across Victor’s abdomen, to the pink cock nestled between them. He felt Victor sinking slowly onto him, hot and tight.

“Victor…oh god,” Yuuri moaned.

“Just about there,” Victor said in a whisper, slipping his arms underneath Yuuri’s and clasping his back. They were chest to chest now, utterly wrapped up in each other. Yuuri discovered he was at a good level to run his lips across Victor’s collarbone, and he leaned his head forward to do so, when he felt Victor begin to gently rock in his lap, his hips undulating while he braced himself with his feet against the pillows. If Yuuri hadn’t known Victor was a dancer, he’d have guessed it from the way he was moving.

“Fuck,” he breathed against Victor’s chest, suddenly overwhelmed with sensation. The delicious feel of being _inside_ him like this. Victor’s cock, still slicked with lube, dragging against his abdomen with every movement. Being held tight in his arms. Victor’s cheek was resting against the hair at the top of Yuuri’s forehead, and he could hear his fast, even breaths. Imagining the expression on his face made him moan again. Victor’s movements were like waves building, building, stronger and higher, pulling them both in their wake.    

Victor placed a palm on either side of Yuuri’s face, just below his ears, bending down for a kiss. His face was flushed, his gaze bright and unfocused. He tried to take the kiss deeper but was panting now, and settled instead on quick, urgent nips and caresses with lips and tongues.

“I’m close, baby,” he said with a shuddering breath. “You’re too fucking sexy.”

Yuuri felt his cock twitch inside Victor, the sensation almost driving him wild. Suddenly emboldened, he wondered just how sexy he could be. His arms had remained around Victor’s waist, but with him in his lap, he found he could easily reach down and dig his fingers into his ass and knead the taut muscles there. Not content with that, he began to thrust his hips to meet Victor’s, pulling him onto his cock at the same time. They developed a hard, quick rhythm that drove all thought from his head.

Victor’s hands fell onto Yuuri’s shoulders, fingers gripping at his skin. His mouth hung open, his eyes half-lidded, as he made throaty sounds somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. In the back of his head, Yuuri seemed to remember he’d heard – or read? – that the receiving partner ought to be allowed to orgasm first. He knew he couldn’t hold off much longer, but he didn’t want to try, either. If Victor was disappointed by that…Yuuri would be more than willing to see to his needs, with his help as to how. Right now…? This was absolutely fucking incredible. Victor seemed to be loving it too, which was the sexiest thing of all.

“Victor…” he gasped, “…oh Christ, I’m going to – ”

“Yuuri, please, will you look at me when you come?” Victor said, his own breaths ragged. “I want to see you.”

Yuuri was already hurtling toward his climax, the feel of thrusting into Victor like this both new and overwhelming. He held those blue eyes with his own, though he desperately wanted to shut them against the waves of pleasure that suddenly crashed into him. His fingers had clamped around Victor’s ass, holding him close against him; and he was aware of loud moans coming from his throat. It was another moment of exposure, he was dimly aware. Surely he simply looked ridiculous. Not that he was in a position to do anything else, as the pulses shook through him and then faded.

He felt Victor’s hands on either side of his face again, their gazes still locked. He briefly captured Yuuri’s lips between breaths. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

Yuuri rode on a cloud for a moment, savoring the word. But…Victor – what could he do for Victor?

“Touch me,” Victor told him quietly.

Yuuri reached a hand down, wrapped it around him, and began to stroke, slipping his other hand through the short hairs at the back of his head. Victor leaned down until their foreheads were touching again.

“Yuuri, yes…faster…” he whispered, looking at him, continuing to guide him with his words. “Just focus on the end…put your thumb…” He gently repositioned Yuuri’s hand, and began to _melt_ when Yuuri quickened his movements again. “Oh yes, that’s… _oh_.” He closed his eyes, hands falling to Yuuri’s shoulders again, kneading at them.

Yuuri wondered what he could say to encourage him. He didn’t know if Victor was in a state to receive ESP impressions, but he knew it would be difficult to put what he wanted to say into audible words. _[You’re the beautiful one. Let me see your eyes.]_ Victor opened them and Yuuri smiled, his hand never ceasing its movements. _[I still want you. I’ll never stop. I…]_ He bit his lip and sent the image, knowing it was true, and that he would also burn in the flames of his own shame for the rest of eternity. He could never _say_ it, but he could _think_ it. _[I want your hot come all over my body. Give it to me.]_

Victor sucked in an audible gasp and spasmed in his hand, his fingers tensing and flexing on Yuuri’s shoulders, jaw dropping in a silent cry, eyes widening, the expression in them a glazed mixture of surprise and pleasure. Drawing heaving breaths, he finally gave up the struggle to hold Yuuri’s gaze and tilted his head back with his eyes closed, letting out a groan. Yuuri milked him through it, turned on despite being spent, and feeling a bit like a cheap porn star for what he’d sent Victor via ESP.

“God Yuuri,” Victor finally said, coming back to himself and kissing his forehead, then looking down at him. “That…that was amazing. I didn’t think…I never would’ve guessed…” Seemingly unable to finish the sentence, he swiped a finger at a drop of come on Yuuri’s chest and grinned at him, eyes shining. “That was _incredibly_ hot.”

Yuuri felt his face turn scarlet and blinked but said nothing. Victor gave him a long kiss that added to the blissful glow already suffusing him, then carefully climbed off his lap and grabbed their towels. After they’d cleaned off, Victor slid under the sheets, Yuuri joining him, and they were in each other’s arms again, hands idly caressing. Yuuri closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of being enveloped in Victor’s warmth. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so calm. If he wanted evidence that he’d done OK for his first time, that Victor would enjoy it and still want him, he’d had plenty; though he knew it wasn’t a performance. And lying here together like this…the reality of it was even better than he’d imagined. He snuggled closer, placing a kiss on Victor’s chest.

“That was really special,” Victor said against the top of his head. He paused, and his voice dropped. “I’m…sorry I doubted you, Yuuri. All the things you tried to tell me. It won’t happen again, I promise. And then when I think of this morning, and how close you came to…” His words were choked off, and Yuuri felt his arms tighten around him.

“Victor,” he whispered. Then he scooted so that their faces were level, and he trailed his fingers across Victor’s chest, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I ran away. For a while there, I…thought I’d never see you again. I’m so glad you found me.”

Victor stroked the back of his head, his eyes suddenly troubled. “But they followed me, Yuuri. I really was an idiot – ”

Yuuri laid a finger across his lips to stop him from continuing. “No – you were amazing. You helped put me back together when I came to pieces. You _saved_ my _life._ You…” He thought for a moment, then smiled. “You’re Victor Nikiforov. You’re Velvet. And I love you.”

His heart fluttered at the gleam that had returned to Victor’s clear eyes, as he leaned in for a kiss.

***

Victor wasn’t one of those people who came to gradually in the morning. His consciousness had a habit of snapping to attention from wherever it went during sleep. Although he appreciated all the pleasures of a leisurely lie-in, he could just as happily spring out from under the sheets as soon as his eyes opened. He liked his coffee, but it was more of a ritual and a treat than anything necessary to hammer his system into moving.

However, there was no reason, no reason at all, to be hasty just now, he thought as the irony of his situation struck him. This battered, neglected old hotel room in some forgotten tourist town. It had gotten under his skin the night before, he had to admit, though he wasn’t proud of it. But then, he thought with a wave of heat, everything they’d done in here, all the pleasures they’d discovered together and enjoyed, had made it feel like the plush boudoir of a palace.

Because all that had mattered in the end was the man who was lying next to him. Somehow they’d shifted in the night so that they were loosely spooning, Victor behind Yuuri with his arms draped around his chest. He suspected it might be his own doing, instinctively seeking out the warmth that was there; that hopefully would be there every night, now. It had been a long time, he realized, since he’d shared a bed with someone who he was honestly glad to see in the morning. But _glad_ didn’t express how he felt waking up to discover Yuuri next to him like this. His heart was full of joy. Just like it had been the previous morning, despite the cramped single bed they’d slept in. This would take some getting used to, he decided. And in the best possible way.

Yuuri’s breathing was deep and even. Victor gazed at his long eyelashes, slightly curled at the ends; the thick tangle of dark brown hair that was endearing like this, though he felt momentarily curious about how it might look longer, in a ponytail even, like Victor’s had been when he’d danced ballet. Yes, it would suit him. Though his favorite style would probably still be when it was slicked back from his forehead, to give those determined eyebrows the prominence they deserved. His eyes wandered to the pink lips, slightly parted. Beautiful. Then he remembered the things those lips had done last night, and a pulse of desire ran through him. As if he needed more of that. He’d already been hard when he woke up.

He got the impression that Yuuri really would have pleasured him with his mouth until he’d come, maybe believing that was how to show a man a good time, despite their agreement that they were going to make love. All right, not everyone defined that term in the same way, but surely it implied something that was done together. At least Yuuri had been willing to be guided into something more of that nature. It seemed safe to conclude that he hadn’t had many sexual experiences up to now; and few if any positive ones. It would be a privilege and a delight to put that right. But even better…underneath the understandable uncertainty was that sensuality Victor had always known was smoldering under the surface, waiting to be coaxed into a blaze. They’d gotten there last night. The way Yuuri had eventually given in to his desire and pulled him onto him, fucking into him like that…

Victor exhaled, his cock nudging against Yuuri’s ass. But the last thing he wanted to do after such a beautiful night was come on too strong before Yuuri had had a chance to properly wake up. He doubted Yuuri had ever been in a situation where he’d been prodded awake in quite this way. In fact, to be on the safe side, he would go take a cold shower now, put some underwear on, and return to bed. Maybe Yuuri would enjoy a cuddle.

“Good morning, Velvet,” he heard in a warm, sleepy mutter, and he leaned over to see that Yuuri’s eyelids were fluttering open. The name sent lovely ripples through him.

“Good morning, _Zvezda moya_ ,” he replied, tightening his embrace. He felt Yuuri’s hands caressing his forearm, and his thoughts began to fragment. _Don’t overwhelm him_ , he told himself sternly. He kissed a shoulder affectionately and then smiled as those large brown eyes opened all the way. Then Yuuri turned his head around and tilted it up, pulling Victor toward him at the same time for a kiss.

 _[Waking up next to you is the most wonderful thing],_ he sent as his tongue searched out Victor’s and entwined with it.

All Victor could send back was surprise and heat as he pulled the sheet covering their torsos away, and ran a hand down Yuuri’s beautiful bare side – chest, waist, hip. But he didn’t want to make more mistakes where Yuuri was concerned. “I’m glad you’re here with me too,” he said, drawing back a little. “Do you think we have time to snuggle for a while, before we have to go?”    

“You’re lying here with your dick poking my ass and you’re talking about snuggling?” Yuuri said with a smirk, looking at him with hooded eyes.

Victor swallowed, another pulse of heat going to his groin. Maybe he wasn’t as good at gauging these things with Yuuri as he’d hoped. But…in this situation, that didn’t seem to be a bad thing. He wondered what Yuuri might enjoy getting up to; what he could suggest.

“Take me,” came Yuuri’s quiet voice. Self-consciousness and the determination to make Victor understand what he wanted seemed be vying within him, if the expression on his face was anything to go by; the look in his eyes more pleading than seductive now. _Please don’t make fun of me. Please give me what I want,_ he seemed to be saying. Maybe there was even some ESP mixed with it; it was hard to be sure, because the ability seemed to fall away along with concentration, and at times like this his mind was not exactly focused. Especially after Yuuri had said what he just did. But…

“Are you sore from last night?” he made himself ask, because really, it was important to know. “I…we could do something different, if – ”

“No,” Yuuri replied, sounding a little more sure of himself. “I wanted to do these things with you in Boston. And then we were separated for ages. I…I just want to be with you, Victor.” He tilted his head up for another kiss, then added, “And I want…”

Yuuri was sending him an image, he realized. Like he had last night. Victor decided he preferred that he try to find the courage to put these things into words, rather than hiding his embarrassment by using the ESP – though that would be welcome enough, too, especially after he’d just seen what Yuuri wanted him to do. “You want to feel me come inside you,” he said, his voice hitching.

“Yes,” Yuuri whispered fervently, a blush spreading across his cheeks as he looked into his eyes.

Victor captured Yuuri’s mouth in a long, deep kiss, both of them moaning into it. His hand glided down to Yuuri’s cock, which he discovered was as hard as his own, and he began to stroke it while making gentle grinding movements against his ass. _Want,_ he thought, in red. Maybe he sent it, too.

Yuuri broke away from the kiss and said hoarsely, “I won’t last long, with you doing those things.”

“I look forward to it,” Victor breathed back. He moved away briefly to get the bottle of lube, then asked Yuuri to lift his leg at the knee. He was still loose from the night before, Victor quickly discovered, but you couldn’t be too careful, and Yuuri clearly liked having his fingers inside him. After being treated to a series of delectable noises that fueled his own need still further, Victor lined himself up behind Yuuri, wrapped his arms around his chest, and pressed kisses into his hair as he pushed in, drawing more moans from them both.

Yuuri sighed his name and dug his fingers into his arms as if he were hanging on in case he fell. At this angle, Victor couldn’t get in very deep, but no matter. He built up to short, sharp, quick thrusts, reaching around again to stroke Yuuri while he nibbled his ear, tasted his neck, placed open-mouthed kisses across his shoulder and back, and drank in the cries Yuuri made, which grew steadily louder and higher, punctuated with gasps. It was too good by far; a wild, bright blaze. When Yuuri came, clenching around Victor and calling his name, it sent him over the edge too, and they shuddered and quaked and then stilled, their slowing breaths filling the quiet of the room.                  

Eventually Victor separated to grab a towel from last night off the floor, and after they cleaned up, he pulled the sheet over them both. Yuuri nestled his head in the crook of his neck the way he liked to do. Victor cupped the back of it with his hand. “I could be happy lying here like this with you forever,” he said.

“Love you,” he heard Yuuri mumble.

“Love you too.” He kissed his forehead. He still wasn’t sure what had taken him so long to say it the first time. Dropping hints hadn’t been the same as speaking the actual words. Maybe his experiences with Mikhail and all the others had made him wary. But this was _Yuuri_ …Well, they seemed to be making up for lost time now. That was fine by him.

He wasn’t sure how long they lay, floating on a cloud, someplace where there was no time to pass, and no agents to chase them. No world to trouble them with its problems. Just the two of them, their hearts beating together, in a perfect moment. But then Yuuri took it upon himself to remind him that those, like all the other kinds of moments, never stood still, and never could.

“We’d better get moving,” he said, gazing at him with a regretful smile. “It’s going to take some time to get to the rail yard, and then we’ve got to catch a train, and it’ll be a long ride.”

Victor gave him a pouty look. Then he returned his smile. “I know what would be more fun. Staying here all day and making love.”

Yuuri laughed. “In this dingy place? You hate it here.”

“No I don’t. Not after what we’ve been doing.” He kissed his nose and said softly, “It’ll always be special to me now.”


	52. Chapter 52

Victor leaned against the tree trunk, his backpack on the ground next to him, the breeze reaching its fingers under his bangs and gently playing with them. It was on the cool side of room temperature here, which felt odd in December. Boston and New York could easily be covered with snow. St. Petersburg, certainly…but his heart lurched, as it always did these days, when his thoughts strayed that way. Papa. Anna. Makkachin. When would he…

_I can’t think about that right now._

Yuuri had strayed a little further down the tracks, re-checking his printout of the train schedule and looking into the distance. He was wearing the usual jeans and short-sleeved T-shirt; Victor had meant to ask him about shopping for some clothes, but they had limited space in their backpacks, and well, they weren’t headed anyplace where they needed anything special. Though from what he could tell, it would be colder at the Elkhorn Project, as it was in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He’d put on a pair of black slacks and a pink long-sleeved button-down shirt, instinctively hoping to make a good impression at this new place, though come to think of it he _was_ probably overdressed for traveling on a freight train. Yuuri had even asked him if he’d prefer to wear jeans instead, but the security that a decent outfit offered had overruled practicality. Sometimes he just needed it to be that way. Even scientists…ex-scientists… _no, I’m still a scientist_ …had their illogical moments, he supposed.

They’d taken the risk of getting the desk attendant at the hotel to order them a taxi, since anyone trying to trace them would only be able to follow it as far as the outskirts of Los Angeles. Then they’d walked a couple of kilometers to this copse of trees outside the rail yard. When they’d gotten here, Yuuri had explained to him how to hop a car, told him what to do and what not to do, and said he should follow his lead. He’d been surprised, he said, not to find anyone else here waiting to do the same thing; but then this was California, where the unchipped and poor wanted to come in the hope of a better life. People tended to immigrate rather than emigrate.

Yuuri walked back toward him, hauling his backpack with one hand while he continued to browse the schedule he held in the other. Two trains had already passed since they’d arrived; one had been traveling too fast, and the other had been packed full of large metal components that Victor thought were probably destined to go into aircraft. Yuuri had been quick to insist that he didn’t want to take any chances with their safety, though of course they both knew they would be doing that by hopping a train in the first place.

“There should be another one soon,” Yuuri said as he came to stand next to him. “Though they don’t always run to schedule.”

“Name something that does,” Victor said with a laugh.

Yuuri had dropped his backpack to the ground after tucking the schedule away and was absently fidgeting with the drawstring. Brown eyes glanced up at him. Nervousness lurked in their depths. No – more than that…

_[I don’t think this is a good idea anymore.]_

Victor looked at him with a clouded brow, but Yuuri’s eyes were on the train tracks going in the direction of the rail yard.

_[This was a very stupid thing to do.]_

With a jolt, he realized Yuuri was sending him thoughts, feelings, impressions without consciously intending to. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it had never been this strong before. Was there a deeper connection between them now? Or was something else happening?

He closed his eyes, and yes – there were images in his head like hazy dreams. When he concentrated on them, they grew more vivid and detailed. Then he quickly wished he hadn’t. He was seeing _himself_ from the point of view of someone else – Yuuri, presumably, who was in a moving boxcar. Victor was running as fast as he could, desperately trying to keep up; somehow he’d missed his chance. In his haste, he slipped, and… _Iisus Khristos._ He gasped, wanting to blot it out, but when it was in his _head_ , how could he? More macabre scenes followed, even worse than the first. It was like watching a horror film. And he was the victim. His hands fluttered up over his face and he cried out, his eyes flying open wide, though it was all still there inside of him, he could see it… _Stop, stop, stop…_

“Victor!” Yuuri called, suddenly in front of him, his arms on his shoulders. “What is it? Is…are you being attacked?”

The images began to fade, and he lowered his hands. “No, I…I don’t think so,” he said in a small voice.

“What’s happening?” Yuuri’s agitated gaze searched his own.

Victor swallowed, willing himself to calm down. Just like a horror film, it hadn’t been real. And he would have to be careful about this, because he was certain it hadn’t been deliberate. “You…um…you’re afraid something bad is going to happen to me if we try to hop a train. Aren’t you.” It was quiet statement.

Yuuri sucked in a breath, his eyes widening. “How did you know? Did – ”

“How do you think?”

Yuuri shook his head. “I – ”

Victor placed his hands on Yuuri’s waist. “Were you really imagining all those things happening to me? My legs getting broken…being run over by the train?”

A tear slipped silently down Yuuri’s cheek and he nodded. “I’m so sorry, Victor. It’s bad enough I get these things in my own mind. I never meant – ”

“I know,” he said, feeling his nerves settle as he wiped the tear away with a forefinger. “Is…that what an anxiety attack is like?”

Yuuri paused, then said, “No, an actual attack is worse.”

“Worse?” Victor echoed, the words cutting through him. How could anything be worse than that? “So these were…worries?”

Yuuri sighed. “Anxiety is a spectrum, Victor. I know you understand these things. I get…ideas, pictures in my head of bad things that might happen. I can’t stop them from coming. Usually I can deal with them before they, um, before they turn into a full-blown attack. Though I guess I might be more prone to it right now, with everything we’ve been going through. I’m sorry – ”

“Yuuri,” Victor said, giving his waist a squeeze, “if what you’ve given me is a taste of what you have to put up with, I…” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked at him intently. “…I think you must be the bravest person I’ve ever known.”

Yuuri stared at him in disbelief. Then he huffed an amazed little laugh. Victor smiled at him. The next thing he knew, Yuuri had pulled him into a tight embrace; he could feel his breaths against his shoulder. “Thank you,” came Yuuri’s muffled earnest voice.

“It’s the truth,” Victor said simply, hugging him back and kissing his temple. It made him ache to think of his love being tortured by his own mind like this. The same mind that had landed him at MIT aged fourteen; the same one that reached into the ether to help people traumatized by a power they didn’t understand. After a moment, he pulled away a little and ghosted a hand down Yuuri’s cheek. “So, should we think of a plan B?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought it was obvious. We find a different way to get to the commune.”

“I thought we’d agreed to hop a train.”

Victor blinked. “But you don’t want to.”

Yuuri huffed another laugh and shook his head. “It’s a good thing you aren’t me. If I gave in every time I got these thoughts, I wouldn’t get very far. Remember what I said about how anxious I got when I had to teach a class? I still had to do it. I gave presentations too, though it terrified me sometimes.” He looked down. “As you know. But you can’t let it control your life.”

Victor found, however, that he felt agitated about this now himself, though he hadn’t been before. Who wouldn’t be, after watching themselves get killed or mangled? But he nodded, just as a distant sound of metal on metal, and the roar of an engine, approached. Sophisticated modern maglev trains these were not. Perhaps it was a matter of the money it would take to replace the tracks and rolling stock and so on, but the behemoths that Victor had seen go past looked like they had been in operation many years, and the one now approaching was the same. It was traveling slowly, pulling what appeared to be a long load behind it.

“We can get this one,” Yuuri said. “Though we need to decide fast. Do you – ”

Victor looked into his eyes and then shouldered his backpack. “I do. Lead the way.”

Yuuri shrugged his own backpack on and broke into a run, approaching the train. Victor felt his heart leap into his throat as they passed under the tall shadows of the cars. Now he could understand all too well why Yuuri had been anxious; anybody with the slightest bit of common sense would not be running alongside a colossal moving vehicle like this. They were next to a boxcar with half-open doors, and Yuuri planted his palms on the floor and leaped in. Instantly he scrambled to the edge, holding out a hand for Victor, who felt positively nauseous now as he recognized the nightmare scenario Yuuri had been imagining, only this time from his own point of view. But his legs were keeping pace, almost. He took Yuuri’s hand, placed his other one on the floor of the boxcar, and heaved himself up, sprawling gratefully across the flat wooden planks that were…covered in hay. Piles of it. Bales of it. He sat up, looking around dazedly.

Yuuri chuckled next to him. “We did it.”

“This place is covered in hay.”

“Yeah, you get that sometimes. It’s OK, though; at least you don’t have to sit on a hard floor for hours.”

“Are there…animals in here, do you think?”

“Not that I can see. I think the open doors might be a giveaway.”

“Animal shit all over the hay?”

Yuuri stood up and looked around. “Not that I can see or smell. Maybe this is fodder going to farms.”

Victor pulled off his backpack, lay down on his back and watched the fields flash by as they picked up speed. “I don’t know if I should laugh like someone at an amusement park, or throw up because I just did something so dangerous.”

“Aren’t the two supposed to go together?” Yuuri was sitting next to him now, seemingly no more concerned than if he’d been watching a baseball game on TV in a motel.

“How can you be so calm?” Victor asked in astonishment. Yuuri bust out laughing, and he followed, realizing what an outrageous thing it was to say after the conversation they’d had just moments before. “Well if you’re not, you’re doing a good imitation of it.”

“You’re just an oogle. You’ll get over it.”

Victor sat up, dusting hay off his shirt. “A what?”

“Someone who’s never hopped a train before.” He took a carton of water out of his backpack, had a swig and offered it to Victor, who did the same. “It’s going to be about four hours before we get to Sonora, and that’s if the train doesn’t make stops.” He opened a pocket of his backpack and took out the GPS device, examining it.

“Yeah, I remember from looking at the schedule last night.”

“This seems to be working OK. It’s tracking us as we move. We should be able to tell from it where we are. Not that it’s going to matter for a while yet.” He tucked it back into its box and put it away, wrapping his arms around his knees and watching the scenery outside the doors.

A cloud bank had snuffed out the golden rays of sun, and a drizzle had started to fall. Victor didn’t think he’d seen rain the whole time he’d been in California until now. The air had cooled a little, and the damp odor of petrichor floated into the boxcar to mix with the earthy one of the hay. A few drops landed in a fine spray on his face.

“I’m wishing for the thousandth time that I had a radio,” Yuuri said. “It’s a good way to pass the time. I kept looking at the antique store near the commune, but they never had one.”

Victor made a humming noise and licked the mist off his lips, then decided he would spend the rest of the journey feeling uncomfortable if he let himself get any wetter, even though it felt refreshing somehow to be sitting here like this. “Why don’t we move further back in the car and find a nice big pile of hay, lean back and talk?”

“About what?”

Victor shrugged and smiled. “Anything.” He led the way to a good-sized stack that was well sheltered from the weather, put his backpack nearby, and launched himself into it. There was a small explosion of the pale strands as he impacted and sank down, and he heard Yuuri laugh as he more cautiously crawled to half-sit, half-lie next to him. “It’s warmer here,” Victor observed. “Soft, too. Maybe just a little prickly, if you poke it at the wrong angle.” He folded his hands behind his head and sighed. “This is the life.”

“Is it?” Yuuri said, laughing again.

“It’s comfortable here. I’m with my favorite person, with nowhere else to go. What more could I ask for?”

Yuuri snuggled closer, picking straws out of Victor’s hair that he didn’t know were there, and looking at him thoughtfully. “That’s a nice way to put it.” He paused. “So what do you want to talk about?”

Victor considered. When his family and St. Petersburg had come to mind outside the rail yard, it had tied knots in his stomach, as it always did these days, until he’d pushed the thoughts aside. But was he going to spend the foreseeable future doing that? It wasn’t pure pain he was experiencing, he realized. It was something more bittersweet, because he loved his family, too. He’d felt something very similar when Yuuri had disappeared.

“Would you be interested in hearing more about where I grew up?” he asked.

Yuuri gave him a warm smile. “Of course I would.”

So he talked, trusting that Yuuri would let him know if he was getting bored. When he and Anna were little, he said, his parents took them on frequent visits to the palaces and stately homes in and around the city. He’d continued to make trips to the Hermitage Museum on his own when he was older, sitting on the benches in the galleries and admiring the beautiful paintings. Then there was St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which he recalled telling Yuuri about in Boston. Vacations, when they could afford them, were usually spent at resorts on the Black Sea. They didn’t do so much together after his mother died, and Anna had gotten sick, he explained. That was when he’d started spending most of his spare time in his father’s workshop.

As he talked, the old familiar emotions attached to the topics stirred inside him. He knew there was always a melancholy involved with these things, of course, but it was in the background like a blue screen, turning everything a little colder, like summer segueing into autumn. He’d long since stopped coming to tears about it. Yuuri tentatively asked what his mother had done for a living, and he answered that she’d been a children’s ballet instructor, not quite possessing the skill to enter the profession herself. What he didn’t add was that she had the attitude of a failed ballerina or an enthusiastic teacher depending on the day or the hour or the mood, switching between them like a pair of comedy and tragedy theater masks. Or at least, that was how his ten-year-old self remembered her. Victor had felt caught in the middle, encouraged to follow in her footsteps and succeed where she had failed. He’d been in her class for a while, and was certain she’d been harder on him than her other students. If she’d lived, continuing to push him in that direction while being present to assist with Anna at the same time, he might well have become a dancer, he thought. Though sometimes he wondered whether there might have been a rebellious part of him that would have pulled him into something utterly different. Like neuroscience, perhaps.          

“Do you look like her?” Yuuri asked. His words had the low, hesitant quality Victor had come to identify with people who asked about the dead and were never certain whether it was acceptable to do so or what kind of reaction it would provoke. Maybe it would have taken Yuuri a long time to mention anything at all if he himself had not begun the conversation, he mused.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I’ll show…” He pursed his lips. _I’ll show you a picture one day._ Only, he didn’t know if he had one anymore, because he didn’t know what had happened to his possessions in Boston and New York. Whether he would ever again be in a position to obtain one from his surviving family, he didn’t know either. “Well, I’ve been told I have her eyes and hair.”

“She must’ve been beautiful.”

“You should see Anna,” Victor said with a small smile. “Now, that’s me. What about you?” Then he caught himself. How had he forgotten? All right, the last time Yuuri had mentioned his family had been months ago; but still. The one conversation he’d overheard Yuuri’s side of in the office should have been reminder enough. “I didn’t – ” he began to add in an apologetic tone.

“It’s fine. You remembered we went to the Palomar Observatory, didn’t you? I don’t think I’ve said much else. Let me think.”

He told Victor a little about living in Detroit and Chicago, and about some of the vacations he’d been on when he was young. Victor asked him to describe what he’d seen in South America in more detail, which he did with a nostalgic gleam in his eyes. The places were all of interest to him, that was obvious. The people, his family, clearly not an enjoyable subject for discussion. Victor asked him if he’d ever visited Japan.

He shook his head. “Not since we moved away when I was little. If I went back now, I’d just be a tourist. Though I can speak the language, which would be helpful I guess.”

“Teach me some Japanese?” Victor said on impulse, giving him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “I don’t think I know a single word. Or maybe…hm. Origato?”

“ _Arigatou_ is ‘thank you,’ ” Yuuri said, appearing to hold back a laugh. “OK, if you want.”

Yuuri taught him the words for yes, no, please, and so on, and Victor did his best to commit them to memory. Before they moved on to things like “where is the subway” and “how much does that cost,” however, he intervened. “How about something sexy,” he said, trying to make his gaze match his words. They were both inclined in the hay, sunken into it a little, almost but not quite touching. He batted his eyelids a couple of times, and then saw that blush he loved while Yuuri changed tack and considered his request.

 _“Kimi wa yume mitai da_ – ‘You’re like a dream,’ ” he said with a smile. Victor tried to repeat it and realized he must have done terribly, because Yuuri burst out laughing.

“I’ll be more courteous when I’m teaching you Russian,” Victor commented with a raised eyebrow, though he was smiling back. They tried the sentence several more times, making silly expressions at each other. “Teach me another,” Victor eventually said.

“Um…OK. _Utsukushii me wo shiteiru_ – ‘You have beautiful eyes.’ ”

Victor’s tongue stumbled over the sounds, though Yuuri held back a laugh this time, and they practiced again. “I like saying these things, because I mean them anyway when I’m talking to you,” Victor said with a small grin, tilting his head back into the hay and looking up at him.

“I like your accent in Japanese. Though I like it in English, too. It’s…I don’t know, kind of sexy.”

Victor smirked. “That’s good to know. Come on, then. Say something else.”

Yuuri paused, and the pink on his cheeks deepened. “ _Kimochi ii_ – ‘It feels good.’ ” He gave a little laugh and looked down at him.

“Oh,” Victor said softly, “I might have a use for that. What about…‘I love you?’ ”

 _“Aishiteru,”_ Yuuri said, his smile dropping away, brown eyes meeting his own with something more intense now.

Victor repeated it as if his very heart were speaking, and he watched Yuuri take a breath. “How about, ‘I want to kiss you?’ ” he whispered.

_“Kiss shitai.”_

Before Victor could respond or make good on his offer, however, Yuuri pre-empted him, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his lips, stroking his cheek. Victor sighed into it and ran his fingers through Yuuri’s hair, a languid wave of warmth passing through him. There was no reason to hurry; they could savor this as long as they liked. Yuuri caught his bottom lip between his own, then gave it a teasing lick, and broke away briefly to smile, his eyes hooded. Victor returned the treatment, reaching his bottom arm under the hay to circle around Yuuri’s back while his other hand caressed hair and face and neck, with his palm and then the backs of his fingers, coming to rest again on his cheek. He felt like he was drinking a glass of the finest wine. Or…eating cupuaçu truffles. Which prompted him to lick into Yuuri’s mouth and touch and circle his yielding tongue. No, this was better.

Yuuri pulled away just enough to ask with a touch of amusement, “Why are you thinking about those truffles you fed me that night in your apartment?”  

Victor felt his expression turn sheepish. “I didn’t know you’d realized I was.”

“You…” Yuuri seemed to be concentrating hard for a moment. “You thought kissing me was like those.”

This degree of intimacy could be a little disconcerting at times, Victor thought. What if something went through his mind that Yuuri picked up on and didn’t like? That was what words were for, to filter things so that people only heard what you wanted them to. He didn’t want to hurt Yuuri this way, but it might require some delicate handling in the future, he decided.

With a start, he realized Yuuri was sending him images. Unlike the ones in the rail yard, these were calm, controlled, pleasant, and…strangely erotic, continuing as they were with the food theme. Whipped cream. Honey. A dessert.

“Y-You’re thinking I’m a piece of baklava?” he said with a quiet laugh.

“That’s what kissing you is like…soft and sweet.” His lids were still half-lowered, the heat in his eyes unmistakable. “Like cream and honey.”

Victor breathed out, remembering the times in Boston when he would’ve given anything to watch and listen to Yuuri eat a piece of cake or something he found equally delicious, because it was alluringly obscene. And now, well…he discovered he didn’t feel any differently.

Flicking a glance at Victor’s hand on his cheek, Yuuri took it and guided it toward his mouth. He kissed the backs of his fingers, then teased the tip of the middle one with his lips and tongue, giving it a gentle suck while closing his eyes. Victor’s mouth fell open, and as Yuuri continued to lave at his finger, slipping him seductive glances, he soon felt his cock straining against the front of his pants and let out a broken moan.

“Victor,” Yuuri murmured, placing his hands on his shoulders and coming in for another kiss, this one urgent and full of want. Victor embraced him, his hips seeking friction and finding it against the hard bulge in Yuuri’s jeans. He moaned into Yuuri’s mouth, and a moment later his brain registered fingers working the buttons of his shirt undone. He felt the cool air of the boxcar against his neck and collarbones.

He hadn’t planned on this, and it _was_ a little chilly in here, though the hay seemed to be a good insulator. And anyway, Yuuri had started it…sort of. He was up for it again even after last night and this morning – and they were in a moving, bumping, vibrating boxcar. It was sexy as fuck. Besides, he was completely and thoroughly in love with this warm and willing man in his arms. What more reason would anyone need?

Hands were exploring his chest and abdomen and waist. Yuuri pulled the front of his shirt aside and sighed kisses against his chest, finding a nipple and nipping and licking at it. A jolt went to Victor’s groin. He tugged at the hem of Yuuri’s shirt, and he sat up long enough to pull it off and toss it to the side before lying back down and capturing Victor’s lips.

He wondered if Yuuri knew the effect he was having on him, or just how sensual he really was at times like this when he seemed to be able to forget about being self-conscious. He gripped Yuuri’s hip with one hand and raked the other down his smooth chest and stomach, coming to rest at the waistband of his jeans, where he made quick work of the buttons there until the denim was gapping open. Yuuri had paused, his hands stilling, and Victor could hear his breaths. His fingers played for a moment with the fine, soft dark hairs peeking above the tops of his boxers; then he palmed the erection filling them in the front. Yuuri moaned against his chest, and Victor felt his fingers flexing against his skin as he traced the shape of his cock and circled the tip until the material was damp there. He was about to suggest that Yuuri do the same for him, but the idea already seemed to have crossed his mind; he looked into his eyes, as if seeking permission, before his hand strayed downward and unfastened Victor’s belt and the front of his pants.

“Oh yes, baby,” Victor sighed, kissing Yuuri hard. Their tongues tangling, as they pleasured each other while half-undressed like this, would be enough for him on its own. Yuuri was already gasping, arching into his touch and trying to grind even though their hands were caught in the middle. That made him change his mind. “Fuck, Yuuri, I…let’s get these things off. Will you let me…?”

Yuuri nodded, kicking his shoes away and removing his socks while Victor did the same, their breathing and the hum and clack-clack of the train the only sounds to be heard, apart from an occasional shushing noise as they shifted in the hay. Then Victor slid his hands down Yuuri’s back and straight past his clothes until they were cupping his ass. He squeezed, loving the tight feel of the muscles there, and cut off the whimpers Yuuri was making with a kiss.

“Victor, _onegai_ ,” Yuuri choked out.

 _Please,_ Victor translated, and resolved not to make him ask twice as he grabbed his jeans and boxers and pulled them down in one go, Yuuri removing them the rest of the way. “Here,” Victor said, yanking his backpack toward him and digging into it for a shirt similar to his own; he found a sky-blue one and gave it to him. “You don’t have any of these anymore, do you?”

“No, why?” Yuuri asked, getting onto his knees and pulling the shirt on.

“So it’ll keep you warm while I do this.” Victor closed the short distance between them, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s chest and smearing open-mouthed kisses across it. He felt Yuuri’s knees buckle as he gave a soft cry, and thought for a moment they were both going to collapse into the hay.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he said with a grin as he continued to kiss, though he felt his own legs trembling.

Yuuri’s fingers threaded through his hair. “You still…have clothes on.”

“I’d better fix that, then.” He lay down in the hay to ease his slacks and briefs off, leaving his shirt on; and when he was done and looked up, he saw Yuuri still on his knees, watching him, one hand pulling at the end of his cock, the blue shirt draped around his shoulders. Victor goggled and Yuuri turned scarlet, his hand dropping away as if he’d been caught in the middle of a criminal act. “You…” Victor swallowed in a dry throat. “You realize that image is going to stick in my head for a very long time.”

Yuuri didn’t seem to know what to say, so Victor acted for them both, taking the bottle of lube out of his backpack and tossing it onto the hay. Then he closed the final centimeters between them slowly, so that their cocks were folded against each other. He wrapped his arms around Yuuri’s bare chest under the shirt again, and felt him do the same. Victor took him in a long, deep kiss, their hips beginning to grind.

“Victor,” Yuuri gasped, breaking away. “I…I want…” His words trailed off, and this time he didn’t send any images, seeming uncertain rather than embarrassed.

Victor had an idea, though. Or at least a suggestion Yuuri might like. “I was inside you this morning,” he said in the middle of trailing kisses along his jaw. “Your turn…if you want.”

Then he _did_ get images…of himself being fucked, legs wrapped around Yuuri’s waist as he thrust into him. From Yuuri’s point of view. Like the food impressions before, it was both strange and erotic. He wasn’t sure if Yuuri was doing this on purpose or if he was so excited it was spilling out of him, but he felt a pulse of heat at this evidence of how much Yuuri desired him. “ _Zvezda moya_ ,” he sighed against his lips. “Do that to me. Fuck me like that.”

Yuuri groaned, tightening his hold around him and lowering them both into the hay, Victor on his back. He took the bottle of lube and squeezed some onto his hand. Victor hooked a leg around his shoulder, noticing how Yuuri was staring as he worked his fingers into him. “Do you like what you see?” he murmured with a grin.

“Victor, you…you’re…” Victor felt a sudden heady wave of love and desire, and knew Yuuri had sent it to express what he’d been struggling to say.

“Come here,” he said, stretching his arms out. Yuuri slicked his hand around his cock, then was on his elbows above Victor, who wrapped his legs around him just as he had in Yuuri’s image. He held him tight in his arms. But Yuuri hesitated, his eyes darting away. There was no need to ask what was troubling him; Victor could feel anxiety coming in ripples from him, not strong, but enough to make him pause and doubt.

“Yuuri…I love you,” he said, and those big brown eyes returned to rest their gaze on him. “I love being with you like this. Take as much time as you need. But if you don’t want – ”

“I do,” Yuuri jumped in quickly. “I _do_ want. I just…I’ve never done this before,” he added unnecessarily. Victor hardly needed ESP to catch the thoughts that followed: _What if I get it wrong? What if you don’t like it?_    

“I want it, too. You’re so sexy. Please, Yuuri…” He gave a gentle smile, though he was aching to have Yuuri inside him. “I’m yours.”

After a moment, to his surprise, Yuuri gave him a beautiful smile back and began to enter him, though he was also watching his expression carefully, presumably frightened that he might hurt him. _That_ was hardly likely to happen, but it was endearing all the same. As Yuuri slowly pushed deeper, Victor closed his eyes and gave a shaky sigh that mixed contentment with desire.

“Is…is that OK?” Yuuri whispered.

Victor’s heart went out to him. Suddenly inspired, he gave Yuuri a heated look, and the corners of his mouth turned up as he said, _“Kimochi ii.”_

Yuuri muttered something back in Japanese, an expression of blissful amazement on his face as he looked down, seemingly concentrating on the sensation of bottoming out inside him. Victor opened his mind and got the impression he was afraid he was enjoying this _too_ much, and would finish too fast or not make it good enough. That didn’t require ESP to guess, either. He was getting used to the way Yuuri seemed to focus on undesirable things that might happen, and worry. He gathered warm, calm feelings and sent them. _[It’s OK. You’re lovely. This is amazing.]_ At the same time, he rested a hand on his shoulder and stroked his cheek with the other. Yuuri’s eyelids fluttered. His face was flushed, his pupils blown wide. And yet he still hesitated.

“You made me feel so good last night,” Victor said, looking for words of encouragement. “And this morning. You’re sexy as hell, you know that? I can’t stop wanting you. I want you now. Please…” He canted his hips up.

Yuuri hissed out a breath and pulled most of the way out, then pushed back in, both of them moaning with the smooth, slick sensation. For Victor, though, it was a tease. He needed Yuuri to fuck into him like he meant it. He’d tried sending the sorts of feelings that might be evoked by a long soak in a steaming bath, or warming in front of the fireplace on a snowy day. Now, if Yuuri was willing, it was time for something different. Wild, leaping flames. A consuming blaze. Victor pushed it into him, giving him a taste of what he wanted to stoke between them. And felt a satisfying spark of success as Yuuri’s eyelids flew wide and his mouth dropped open.

“Give in to it,” Victor prompted him in a low, inviting voice. “You know you want to.”

Victor watched as the uncertainty on his face was chased away by something more confident – determined, even, as if he’d made up his mind to take what he wanted; what he _hungered_ for. The change was astounding…and electric, filling Victor with a thrill of anticipation. Yuuri began to thrust, slowly at first, trying different rhythms, presumably to find out what felt good. Slow and deep. Quicker and shallower. Those incredible hips making little turns and twists. Victor writhed underneath, fighting the instinct to do so, trying to let Yuuri set his own pace. But then Yuuri looked into his eyes and sent him a wave of desire that would have knocked him over had it been physical, and he threw his head and arm back, a breathy cry escaping from his throat and trailing out as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, fuck…” He felt his bangs tossing around his face. It was impossible to resist the movements, with Yuuri driving into him like this, sending him those feelings. If he sent any more, he knew he would come undone completely.

“Victor…” came Yuuri’s voice, and he opened his eyes and drank in the sight before him. Yuuri’s gorgeous nude body, muscles flexing, eyes glazed with lust, pink lips parted. Fucking him with his own shirt draped over his shoulders, gapping open at the front and wrists. He almost came then and there, but fought back the urge, determined to draw out their pleasure as long as he could. He breathed more words of encouragement, but they might have been in Russian.

Yuuri seemed to be trying to say something himself, but was gasping now. “I…oh god, Victor, you…feel so good. Jesus. I can’t…I need – ”

 _“Kiss shitai,”_ Victor said, placing a hand on either side of his face, lifting his own head off the straw. Yuuri tilted down and quickly met him, mouths open, tongues plundering. Victor was dimly aware of their loud moans, muted and swallowed by the stacks of hay before they carried far. Unable to sustain a long kiss, they exchanged broken ones. Victor met Yuuri’s thrusts now, his heels digging into his back, urging him deeper. “Yuuri… _yes_ …”

Suddenly he felt a hand wrap around his cock, smear precome around the head, and begin to stroke. His eyes widened in surprise as he looked at Yuuri, who despite the heat in his gaze still seemed concerned about whether this was OK, if he was doing it right, and if Victor liked it. _Oh bozhe,_ as if he had any reason to worry.

“God, please,” he panted, “don’t stop…”

Yuuri dipped back down to trail kisses up his neck, nipping his earlobe and licking the shell of his ear, his other hand still working his cock, hips pistoning. “Victor…” he gasped, and then choked out, “I…oh god, I’m coming, I’m coming…” He gritted his teeth as he made one last thrust, sounding almost like he was in pain, shoulders taut.  

Seeing Yuuri like this, feeling him inside him, his hand on his cock, was too much, and Victor was rocked by a spasm that pulled a cry from his throat as he erupted onto Yuuri’s hand and his own stomach. _Holy shit,_ was all he could think in a daze as the aftershocks coursed through him.

His mind felt like it had disintegrated; evaporated. He was floating on a cloud and everything in the universe was perfect. Then he felt soft kisses peppering his cheek and realized his eyes were shut and Yuuri was here and _Iisus Khristos_ , had that just been the best sex of his life?

He had an arm draped around Yuuri; the other one was lying limp in the hay. He lifted it to caress Yuuri’s cheek, his eyes fluttering back open…and as the self-contained world of the boxcar came into focus, fading at the back of his mind was something shining and blue, like a hot star. One of those optical illusions you got when you shut your eyes too tight or you were about to faint, not that he’d know. Yuuri making him see stars. Well, after what they’d just done, it was hardly surprising.

“Victor, are you OK?” Yuuri asked as his breaths slowed.

“I…” He realized he was at a loss for words. And that he’d better fix the situation, before Yuuri started to think he’d done something wrong. “Absolutely OK,” he said with a smile, and Yuuri gave him one back, looking relieved. “Oh, Yuuri. I’m distracted, I think, because that was _wonderful_ , and I haven’t come back down to earth yet.”

Yuuri huffed a surprised little laugh. Then the smile fell away, brown eyes searching his own. _“Aishiteru,”_ he added quietly.

Victor tilted his head up for a kiss, soft and long and lingering. His heart was completely in this man’s hands. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.


	53. Chapter 53

If Yuuri didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was very young again, or dreaming, because he had the odd sensation that he was back in the vibrating cushioned baby chair his mother used to put him in to get him to fall asleep. He almost drifted back off…and then realized that the click-clack meant he was on a train. And Victor was here with him in a cushion of hay. They had fallen asleep holding each other.

Once the chill had set in, they’d put their clothes back on, Victor having removed the borrowed shirt from Yuuri and used it to clean them both up. Then he’d wondered idly aloud if he had any clean clothes left. Yuuri had just smiled, though he thought it was a bit of a shame. It had felt sexy wearing Victor’s shirt, even if it was too long for him and probably would strain a little at the front if he tried to button it.

Had he really done all of those things, today and the past few days? he kept asking himself. With _Victor Nikiforov_? The man who used to seem impossibly out of reach as his photo hung on Yuuri’s office wall. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get over that completely. It would continue to stun him when he was fifty. If they were still together…though of course they would be. If they were no longer running from agents…well, surely things would be better by then.

He was surprised to discover he was glad that sex had started this way for them, instead of in Boston as it almost had. He _wasn’t_ glad, of course, about the way they’d been separated or the fact that they were now on the run. That they had both had to build trust back up in each other. But maybe it was _because_ of it that it felt like they were even closer now. And on top of that, Victor developing ESP…it added a dimension Yuuri hadn’t dreamed was possible. Even if it looked like he himself had inadvertently been responsible for it. Thank god Victor had taken it well. One day, somehow, they would research this properly, and they’d discover why he and Rahul and everyone else had developed it too.

His heart was full to overflowing as he watched the man he loved take gentle breaths next to him. Things had gone so wrong. In several fundamental ways, that hadn’t changed. And yet he couldn’t help but wonder again at how _right_ this felt _._

As had making love with him. _To_ him. Being inside of him like that, guiding what was happening. It was new, and exhilarating. He wished he’d had the words to express to Victor how special it had been.    

He’d asked afterward if they could lie here and hold each other. Maybe it was even better than the sex itself, sharing the afterglow, savoring the joy of simply being together – close, loving, sated. They’d created a cocoon of warmth in the hay. Yuuri didn’t want to get up now; his arm was lying across Victor’s front and their legs were tangled together. But they’d already slept for…he didn’t know how long, though he’d figured it was safe to doze while there had still been so much distance to cover.

He sat up and looked at his wristwatch, feeling Victor stir beside him. Plenty of time yet. When he took the GPS device out of his backpack, it showed that they were about halfway to their destination. The thought flitted through his head that they could pass more of the time as they had been doing, he wouldn’t complain, not at all. Then he laughed at himself. He always thought he’d discover that he was a sensual person, given the chance. But there were limits, and he was sure Victor had them too. Besides, as enjoyable as sex with Victor was turning out to be, there was a certain degree of anxiety involved, and probably would be for a while, until he really felt that he knew what he was doing and could be more confident in his actions. Like Victor, who no doubt had much more experience than himself. An unpleasant sensation darted through him when he wondered briefly how he compared to others Victor had been with. Then he told himself not to be silly. Victor had chosen him. He’d even come looking for him. His heart eased as he glanced over and saw Victor smiling, his arms behind his head, a picture of contentment.

“We haven’t missed our stop, I hope?”

“No. We have a couple of hours to go yet. Hungry?”

“Sure. What have we got?”

They pooled together the remains of what they’d bought in Silverado the previous day and ate a leisurely light meal, watching the fields pass by; the rain had stopped, and sunlight was glinting through the scattering gray clouds. Afterward, Yuuri suggested they relax and try communicating with ESP rather than words, just for fun. They started with things like _[There’s a tractor]_ and _[What animal am I thinking of?]_ , eventually moving on to more speculative topics that required verbal comments at times, such as _[I wonder what this offline community will be like]_ and _[I wonder what effect transcranial magnetic stimulation would have on ESP]._ That was Victor’s idea, and it made Yuuri smile. Applying his expertise to something like that? It was tantalizing. They had to make it happen one day. They _would,_ he promised himself.

As they neared Sonora, Yuuri tracked their progress via GPS and began to worry that there would be no opportunity to jump off the train, effectively trapping them in the boxcar for who knew how long. Fortunately, however, trains didn’t tend to travel for hours on end without stopping, certainly not ones of this vintage that still had crew who needed to rest and change over. Plus there was cargo to load or unload. He’d seen on their map that there was a rail yard outside of Sonora, and the train was scheduled to stop there, though there was no guarantee it actually would.

Telling himself to be hopeful, he took his fleece out of his backpack, putting it on as Victor donned his black jacket with the gold dragon. Even after lying in the hay on a freight train, he looked stunning, Yuuri thought. Wondering how it was humanly possible for anyone to be so beautiful, he came close and picked a couple of straws out of his hair. Victor watched him with hooded eyes and nuzzled his cheek while he did it.

“You’re very distracting,” Yuuri said with a little laugh.

“Mm. So are you.”

“We’d better get ready to jump, if we can.” Yuuri took his hand and led him to the doors, where they stood near the edge, peering out, both of them having put on their backpacks. “I think we’re slowing down.”

“Can we not wait until we stop?”

“We might not stop. Or if we do, it’ll be in the rail yard. There are usually bulls – guards – around who’ll arrest you if they see you. Or they might stun you. Us.” He glanced at Victor, who nodded. “We _are_ slowing down, look. Just give it a few more minutes…”

Once he judged the train to be moving slowly enough for them to jump safely – shunting aside the usual fears that clamored to taunt him with what would happen if he made a mistake – he suggested they go on the count of three. “Be careful,” he told Victor.

“Of course.” He took Yuuri’s hand and squeezed it.

“OK. One…two… _three_!”

They leaped at the same time, landing on their feet far enough away from the train to be in no immediate danger from the vehicle. For a moment they both stood and watched it pass, before Yuuri turned and gave Victor a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re safe.” Victor hugged him back and kissed his hair.

“Where do we go?” Victor asked. Looking at their surroundings, he added, “It’s lovely here.”

“More trees, for a start.” Yuuri stepped back and took in a deep breath of cool, fresh air. “Yeah…it reminds me a little of the Berkshires. Not as lush, but it’s greener than where we were before, anyway.” He took the GPS device out of his backpack, turned it on and checked it. “I’m glad we bought this. Looks like there’s a minor road to the northeast that should take us to the commune. It’s a walk of just over a kilometer.”

“Let’s go see if they’ve got any room for us, then. Or we may need the rest of the day to work something else out.”

Yuuri gave him a worried glance, then decided to put that possibility to the back of his mind and focus on finding their way. They crossed grassy scrubland covered in clumps of trees; he recognized buckeyes, dogwoods, laurels, oaks and pines. From the top of a gentle rise, he could see rolling hills to the east, though any sizeable mountains were tucked behind them. There were no patchworks of fields and farms; only the same pine-green landscape with bald patches of earth in all directions. Yuuri knew the town of Sonora lay to the northwest, though he hadn’t caught a glimpse of it yet.

Eventually the trees thinned to reveal a clearing in front of them with small buildings that appeared to be adobe houses the color of pale wheat, their planes and angles gently rounded. A wooden sign where the road ended proclaimed “Welcome to the Elkhorn Project,” and as Yuuri approached with Victor alongside of him, he saw a plaque with information they’d read on the Cloud site, and a map.

“Looks like we keep going straight, cross the Elkhorn River, and the main buildings are here,” he said, pointing at what was roughly the middle of the map. “I suppose we can do what I did when I got to Gaia, and go where someone in charge in likely to be.”

“It’s nicer here, don’t you think?” Victor said, glancing around with an expression of tentative approval.

It was certainly a relief not to see any tin shacks, Yuuri thought, though there was no telling what the rest of the commune was like. But he said he agreed. From what he could see from here, it was bigger than Gaia, but not exactly a metropolis, which suited him fine. There were a few men and women and small children going about their business near houses, inside open doors, walking down the wide dirt swatches between buildings – and they were wearing normal clothes, Yuuri was pleased to see, though the pictures on the Cloud site had shown as much.

Moving in a straight direction was easier said than done because of the way the houses were clustered around, seemingly in no particular order. The GPS device was no use on such a small scale, and Yuuri put it away. He could see the sparkle of the river nearby, however, and they headed for that. Soon he thought he was beginning to see hints of paths, though they tended to merge with the earth and scrub, demarcated only by intermittent patches of grass, and tall trees that shaded the buildings. They passed a number of public areas the size of the backyard of an average house, which looked like gathering places: clear patches of ground with benches, street lamps made of carved wood, and what looked like fire pits, sunken into the ground and surrounded by ledges topped with grass and lined with multicolored stones. Some of the benches were occupied by people silently using tablets. Yuuri called Victor’s attention to it, and he nodded.

 _[I wonder what you’d use a tablet for in an offline community,]_ Yuuri sent, not wanting his voice to carry and attract attention.

_[I’m wondering that, too.]_

There were more houses on the route to the river, of varying sizes and styles; most were made of adobe, though some consisted of wood, while a few were built into the sides of hills. Contrasting with the earthen hues blending into the landscape were decorations of tiles, pieces of glass, bright murals or geometric designs, and mazes of walls, crenelated or curving or sloped, enclosing unroofed spaces so that there was often no clear definition of outside and in. Many such areas were filled with chairs or benches, some of them no more than indentations in the rock covered with slabs and cushions, along with tables and ovens and an amazing variety of plants, from potted palms to catci, blackberry bushes and bright flowers. As they walked, Yuuri and Victor were passed several times by people on bicycles. Some of them pulled small carts behind them covered with tarps, while others offered transport similar to rickshaws. It appeared to be a popular way for parents of small children to get around.

“That’s a hell of a lot better than a hand cart,” Yuuri observed, watching the back of a pink fringed carriage as it trailed away.

“I want to go on one of those,” Victor said with a smile. “They look like fun.”

“To pedal or ride?”

“You could climb into the carriage and I’d take you anywhere.”

Yuuri laughed. “This is really different from the last place I was at.” Victor made a noise of assent. “There wasn’t a…a vibe there, like I feel here. It was like…everybody was wrapped up in themselves, playing at being hippies or eco-warriors or what have you. But they didn’t seem very happy underneath it all.” He shrugged. “Not that I’d have much of an idea, I guess, because the only people I got to know very well there were the Patels. But this seems more what I imagined an offline community would be like.”

“Maybe. But we’d better not be too quick to judge.”

They were briefly interrupted, not for the first time, by a resident asking them in a helpful tone if they were visiting or looking for anyone; and once they expressed a wish to speak to someone about a place to stay, they were given directions to the main lodge, though it had been clear enough on the map. Victor thanked the young woman, and they approached a bridge with wrought-iron railing. There was a scattering of canal boats up and down the riverbanks, in a variety of hues and with names such as “Free Spirit,” “Maggie’s Dream” and “The Codfather” painted imaginatively down the sides. There were rowboats as well, and other larger motorized craft moored at piers, some with indoor seating. Yuuri and Victor paused in the middle of the bridge to watch a canal boat glide downstream. A family of ducks coasted and flapped and dipped near a patch of reeds, and small silver fish darted through the clear waters.

Crossing to the other side of the bridge, they carried on up a small hill through a copse of trees and soon found themselves in what looked like the middle of the community: a large area of bare earth populated by rows of stores made of wooden planks that reminded Yuuri of a wild west town, right down to the boardwalks that formed contiguous sidewalks, though on the far side of the clearing there was an open-air market with covered stalls. He made a mental note of the establishments they passed: grocery, bakery, restaurants and coffee shops, a hardware store, stores selling clothes and shoes, and a Cloud café. There was even a bank, though he and Victor had agreed it would be better to keep their money on them in case they had to leave at short notice.

“Are you shielding?” Yuuri asked Victor quietly while they had paused to take a look around them.

“I always am. Why?”

“I don’t know…I guess it’d just be easy to forget in a place like this. Should we go into one of these places and see what it’s like?”

“OK. How about the general store over there.”

The interior was similar to the one they’d visited in Silverado, lined in wood panels with a rustic feel. The wares were not as blatantly aimed at tourists, though items that had been made by hand on site were in plentiful supply, including arts and crafts, clothing, foods such as jam and honey, and fruit juices and wines. A separate area of the store led to more conventional displays of grocery items in aisles.

“I can’t see any security cameras here,” Yuuri leaned over and whispered to Victor, wishing they could discuss this in silence but knowing the concepts would be difficult to express via ESP. “Maybe there aren’t any. Gaia didn’t have any either.”

“That’s good, then.” He picked up a bottle of strawberry wine from a shelf, lifted an eyebrow at Yuuri with a grin, then took it to the checkout, which was staffed by a young Latino man with an apron. “Would I be able to buy this, or do you just serve members of the community?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” the man replied with a smile. “We wouldn’t stay in business if we did that. The more customers, the better. You’re very welcome, sir. Is this all for you today?”

Victor said it was, paid in cash, stored the wine in his backpack, and they headed back outside into a sunny afternoon. “I could happily spend all day here,” he said. “But we haven’t found this lodge yet.”

“Yeah…for all we know, we’ll be exiting the way we came. One thing I don’t see here is a motel. Not that I expected to. I didn’t expect to see all these stores, either.”

“I suppose it’s possible to live communally and still embrace capitalism,” Victor mused.          

Yuuri was about to reply when he noticed that one of the passers-by was approaching them; a woman of about thirty, with green eyes and thick frizzy brown hair clipped at the back of her head and spilling down to her shoulders, dressed in brown slacks and a white blouse with a cream-colored cardigan. He watched her long enough to take note of her appearance, because the expression on her face seemed to warrant concern. She looked as if she was excited to see them or couldn’t wait to tell them something; and, given the fact that no one here knew who they were or that they’d been planning to come, it made no sense. His heart leaped into his throat, and he could feel the tension Victor was sending, intentionally or not.

She stopped in front of them with a little bounce and gave them both a smile, then looked at Victor, seemingly flustered. “Sorry for staring. But as soon as I saw you, I _knew_ I recognized you. Dr. Nikiforov! I’m familiar with your excellent work. To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

 _[!!!]_ they sent to each other simultaneously. Victor stared at her, and Yuuri felt adrenaline shoot through his veins. They were trapped here, with no quick way out, and this woman who _had fucking recognized Victor_ ; he was a celebrity in the scientific world – as if he could ever forget. Either that, or she was affiliated with the Coughlin Institute…or the CIA. His laser gun was in his pocket. Should he…? No, of course he couldn’t use that here, and certainly not on this woman.

 _[Run?]_ he sent to Victor, feeling sweat break out on his forehead.

_[Let’s wait and see.]_

_[Do you know her?]_

_[No.]_

Her smile had dropped away at their reaction. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude. I’m Dr. Carla Young, late of Stanford University, though this is my home now. I remember reading about your innovative techniques for treating psychosis, Doctor. My specialism was in psychology. I have to say I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I could say the same about you, Doctor,” Victor commented in what Yuuri thought was an admirably suave tone. “What brings you to a place like this?”

The flustered look returned. “Oh, I’ve been here for several years. I, um…wanted to find a place where I could live without a chip. I’m glad I came here, to tell the truth, because it’s so much more than that.”

“No one here has a chip?”

“No one who’s part of the commune.” She lowered her voice, taking the occasional glance at Yuuri as well as Victor while she spoke. “A lot of people here don’t like the idea of continual surveillance. That’s what the chip does. We all knew it at Stanford – they kept an eye on our research all the time. I guess you’ve had the same kind of experience where you work.”

Victor nodded. Yuuri fidgeted with the straps of his backpack.

She thought for a moment, biting her lip. “Look…maybe it’d be better if we went to my place for coffee, and we can talk, and you can tell me why you’re here…?”

 _[I’d like to try this,]_ Victor sent.

 _[OK.]_ Though it didn’t feel that way. Yuuri’s throat had tightened, and he kept reminding himself that he had a gun in his pocket if he needed to use it.

They left the open area of stores and passed more houses and gathering areas. “Is this your first visit to the Elkhorn Project, Dr. – ”

“It’s best if you don’t call me that,” Victor said quickly. “I’m going by the name of Alex Rusnak, and this is – ”

“Will Hopper,” Yuuri put in before Victor could say anything more about him. “But yes, it’s our first visit.” He watched her warily as they walked.

She nodded. “Sure. And please, call me Carla.”

 _[I wonder what’s waiting at her house,]_ Yuuri sent. _[If that’s even where we’re going.]_

_[She could be genuine.]_

_[She could be an agent.]_

Yuuri sensed that Victor felt the stirrings of disagreement, but then was recollecting his misplaced trust in the Institute and was momentarily abashed, as if he didn’t trust his instincts anymore. Yuuri’s heart went out to him…before he again fought down his feelings of panic at their situation.

“The original ‘project’ part of the commune was an eco-friendly ethos,” Carla said, “though nowadays it’s a lot more besides. Privacy from government surveillance. A real community where people take care of each other, but where there’s still a balance between the individual and the group. You’ve probably noticed that here already; people have got their own homes, but there are plenty of places to meet, hardly any fences, and most folks keep their doors open and do a lot of visiting, when they’re not out at work. I’ve been here for four years, and I love it.”

They passed a rectangular adobe house with stairs made from the same material, which spiralled, with thick curved banks on either side, up to the roof, where there was a garden. A room the size of a garage was attached to the main building, open to the elements in the front, with large windows illuminating stacks of handmade pottery and bags of clay and glazes. A woman of about fifty with long blond hair and tooled fringed leather necklaces looked up from throwing a pot on an electric wheel and gave them a quick smile. Her arms were coated in gray almost to the elbows. Yuuri thought the spinning mound was mesmerizing as it quickly changed form under her deft fingers.

  _[Looks like fun,]_ Victor sent.

Yuuri felt glad of their continuing connection, even if it was the ESP equivalent of small talk. It somehow lessened the anxiety creeping through him. _[I’d like to learn how to do that.]_ He imagined himself sitting at the wheel, cool slick clay slipping around his palms. Though whether he’d be able to create anything more functional or artistic than a splat remained to be seen.

“What do you do here, Carla?” Victor asked as they left the woman in her workshop behind.

“Oh, nothing very scientific anymore,” she said, her hands in the pockets of her cardigan as they walked. “I work a few acres and help with the animals, and stop by the tech workshop sometimes. Other jobs too, depending on who needs help, and the time of year. I’m also the elected regional councilor for my area, which has about twenty people. We have weekly meetings – all areas do – where we discuss issues people bring, and I feed them back to the rest of the governing body. Then there’s a meeting of the whole commune every month. No one’s under any obligation to go, but usually everybody does.” The enthusiasm in her voice was clear. “I think people really feel like they’re a part of things here; like their voice actually matters, which makes a real change. You know, from voting for some faceless politician who’s a member of a political party they’re loyal to first, before the needs of their constituents, and who’s in the pockets of people with a lot of money besides. Not that we don’t get problems ourselves sometimes, but I have to say it seems to work pretty well…Here we are.”

They were approaching what was presumably her house, which consisted of a main beehive shape with a smaller beehive attached. To Yuuri, it looked like the potter down the path had taken two hunks of clay and fashioned them, smoothed them with plenty of water, then punched and pulled holes into them, most with clay-lip overhangs for shade; though a couple of nearby oak trees provided this as well. There were modern-looking window frames and doors neatly covering the holes, glass and wood painted white and aqua and cerise. A couple of window boxes contained bright pastel splashes of pansies, strikingly prominent against the subtle earthen tints of the building.   

“Come on in,” Carla invited them, pushing the door open. “Do you both drink coffee?”

Victor said he did, and Yuuri asked for herbal tea if she had any. She went to a kitchen nook to turn the kettle on and poured some coffee grounds into a cafetiere. “I don’t distrust anybody here,” she said, “but it seemed to me like you jacks didn’t want to talk out there in the open. It’s not the best place for it, I admit, because lots of people from outside the commune go there to shop. You’re welcome to sit yourselves down at the table; I won’t be long.”

Yuuri’s gaze roved around the large circular room. A bench made of the same material as the house hugged the thick walls most of the way around, and deep alcoves contained lamps, candles and knick-knacks. The cooking area was well provided with counters and cabinets and shelves, and a nearby oval wooden dining table was flanked by wicker chairs. Victor took off his backpack sat down in one, watching Carla as she prepared their drinks, and Yuuri took a chair next to him and did the same. Their eyes did not directly meet, but they darted glances at each other.

 _[Not many places here for agents to hide,]_ Victor sent.

_[There’s that smaller building. The door over there must lead through.]_

_[Do you think it’s likely this is a trap?]_

Yuuri paused. Instinct told him no. Everything else told him to be ready to run.

 _[I’m not sure either,]_ Victor continued. _[But I don’t think so.]_

Carla brought a mug of chamomile tea for Yuuri and coffee for herself and Victor, along with a small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar lumps. Then she made one more trip to the kitchen area and returned with a tray of food, which she put on the table, along with small plates and forks. “I don’t know if you’re hungry,” she said, “but I had these anyway, and you’re welcome to help yourselves, or not. One of my neighbors loves to bake. That’s carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies. Or you can get something from the fruit bowl there.”

Ordinarily Yuuri loved sampling good home cooking, but he was struggling to find an appetite while he continually assessed Carla’s every word and action for signs of danger. He was beginning to feel more at ease with her, he realized, but then double-thought himself; that might be exactly the effect she was after. To be polite, however, he took a banana and began to peel it. Potassium to help balance the electrolytes.

“This is delicious,” Victor said as he bit into a cookie.

“I know,” Carla said. “They’re _too_ good. Lizzy isn’t doing my waistline any favors with this stuff, but I guess it just means I have to get more visitors to help me eat it.” She dropped a sugar lump into her coffee, followed by a splash of milk, and stirred it. “I’m really glad to have you both here. How about if I tell you my story, in short, and then maybe you’d like to tell me yours?” She put her elbows on the table, cupping her mug in front of her mouth and taking the occasional sip. “I mentioned the surveillance at the university. The truth is, it really got to be a problem. Spooks in suits turned up over and over to warn me off researching this or that. The last project I was planning was going to be the best piece of work I’d ever done.” There was a distant look in her eyes as she thought back. “I was planning on exposing malpractice in the development of pharmaceutical drugs. There’s already evidence going back years, and I was looking at ways to get access to recent reports on drug trials. But we’re talking about a multi-trillion-dollar business, and I should’ve known a little ramshackle operation like mine, with just a few colleagues, would be squashed. They have friends in very high places.”

“What happened?” Yuuri asked.

She set her lips firmly, her eyes glinting. “They sat me down in my office and told me if any of us tried to carry on with the research, they’d start disappearing us, one by one.”

“Disappearing you?” Yuuri echoed.

“They use the same term in Russia,” Victor said with a frown.

“A death threat is what it was,” Carla said in what was ostensibly a calm voice, though her hands shook slightly for a moment. “Believe me, as much passion as I had for getting all that information out in the open, I realized they’d never let it happen, and it wasn’t worth throwing my life away for. But I couldn’t work under those conditions either, so that was when I decided to come here.” She gave a little smile. “I’m not the only one with a story like that, either. A lot of people who come to offline communities are running away from something.” She paused and looked at them keenly. “If you don’t mind me saying, I get the idea that you are, too. Were you hoping to stay here?”

 _[Do we go through with this?]_ Yuuri sent, staring down into his tea.

_[I’d like to find out what she says. Are you OK with that?]_

_[…Yes.]_

“We’re in a similar situation,” Victor said, glancing at Yuuri. “We don’t have jobs to go back to, and were hoping to find a good offline community to join. At least until we can decide on some long-term plans.” He paused. “Confidentiality would be important, too. Do you think there’s anyone else here who’d be likely to recognize us?”

Carla sipped her drink and thought. “I came here on my own, and I’m not aware of other scientists like me here. But I couldn’t tell you with one hundred percent certainty. We’re a pretty big community and I don’t know everyone as well as I’d like, though I’m working on it little by little.”

“Do you have, um, space for us here?” Yuuri chipped in, looking up from his tea at Carla. “There are lots of jobs we could do; we wouldn’t be picky – ”

She put her mug down on the table and raised a hand to cut him off. “Sure, Doctor…”

“Will.”

“Will. It’s true we aren’t always able to take new people in, but we’ve just finished building a few houses, and I’ll be the first to say it’s an honor to have someone with Dr. Niki – uh, Alex’s expertise here. Are you a scientist too?”

“I’m a neuroscientist, yes.” _Was,_ he corrected himself. And then, _Am still._

“Then we really are lucky. I think it’s safe to say we’re in need of your skills here – tech support and development and teaching come to mind for starters. But you’re both young and strong, and could help with a lot of other things. Like I said, there’s usually something to do somewhere here; someone who needs an extra pair of hands, crops that need harvesting, and so on. We’re always working on houses too, building and repairing. We have some tech and AI, but we’re not fully automated, as you’ve probably noticed. It’s expensive and unnecessary. Show me a robot that can take care of a horse better than a real person.” She chuckled. “A lot of residents grow their own vegetables and have fruit trees, too, though that’s maybe something you could look at doing later, if you decided to stay.”   

Yuuri decided he _did_ want to stay. This place was miles better than Gaia. What he hadn’t expected, of course, was for someone here to know who Victor was. He thought it unlikely that Carla was an agent, but even so…well, maybe that was a risk they would have to take. The long days spent in motels and hotels had not been doing either of them any good. Apart from the previous couple of nights, he suddenly realized, and had to stop himself from smiling.

 _[We could stay here,]_ he sent.

_[Yes.]_

_[I don’t want to be worried about agents coming for us in the night.]_

_[I trust her. I think. But I don’t know if I’m right.]_

Yuuri ran a hand across his chin. Victor sipped his coffee.

“Well,” Carla said, breaking the silence, “the usual practice is for new residents to build their own house here, with help from us. Though we also have a few, like the ones we just finished, that are set aside for people to move into right away if they get here and don’t have anywhere else to stay. Those can be rented until they have their own home to move into. There’s one in my area you could use, though it’s on the small side, and you’d have to share it.”   

“That’s no problem. We’re partners,” Victor said as if it were as natural a fact as the sun rising in the east; and Yuuri felt himself blush, though he wasn’t sure why. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Carla glanced at them both, looking pleasantly surprised. “OK. The only problem is, because the house has only just been finished, it’s completely bare. It’s got electricity off the solar grid, and running water, but it’ll need appliances and furnishings. The good news is that we keep some in a warehouse; people donate them when they buy new ones, or if they move away, or sometimes they’re donated by people or organizations outside the commune. We’ve got a small fund to buy in stocks, too. We take care of all these things with new houses, ready for the first people to move in, but haven’t had a chance yet with these – so you’d be welcome to come to the warehouse and choose for yourselves.” She glanced up at a clockface hanging on the wall. “No one would put any pressure on you to stay, Doctors – ” She cut herself off and added ruefully, “I’m sorry, I’ll have to get used to not saying that. But presumably you’ll want to spend the night here. I could show you the house and then take you to the warehouse; we should be able to make sure we get things delivered by tonight, and then you’ll have something to sleep on besides the floor.”

Victor glanced at Yuuri, who gave a small nod. “Sounds like a god idea,” he said.

***

Yuuri spotted the house a short distance away as they walked, tucked among some laurel trees, their long oval leaves scenting the air with a peppery bay aroma. The building was similar to Carla’s, a large beehive with a smaller one annexed to it, perforated with large windows and a wooden front door with decorative ironwork that reminded Yuuri of similar things he’d seen in old churches. They’d taken a bit of extra time and money, then, to construct something that was more than just makeshift, which he found heartening.

 _[Wow,]_ Victor sent. Yuuri smiled.

“Your rent would come out of your pay for the work you do here,” Carla had been explaining, “but we’d make sure you still had something left for yourselves, though it wouldn’t be a lot. There’s nothing stopping you from looking for work off the commune, if that’s what you were thinking of doing; a lot of people do, and get a good income from that. But there are people who do important work here, too, that wouldn’t pay somewhere else – not enough to functionally live on, anyway. Caring for other people, for example – children, the elderly, the disabled. Running services like tech maintenance, education, healthcare, and so on. Whatever anyone earns, though, they’re still part of the community, and no one’s wealthy past a certain point. We all contribute to a communal pot and then redistribute according to need.”

“Sounds like taxes,” Victor commented.

“If you want to be technical about it,” Carla said with a chuckle, pushing the wooden door open. “Come on in – though like I said, I’m afraid there isn’t much to see yet.”

They stepped inside, Carla lingering by the door while Yuuri and Victor wandered slowly around the curved room. Yuuri hugged his arms to his chest, considering. The windows, he noted – actual proper windows, rather than bare holes in the wall – admitted bright beams of sunlight, and had short curtains that matched the warm earthen shade of the walls, with small geometric patterns in maroon and brown. There were electric lights mounted at intervals, and some large ones hanging from the high ceiling, with linen-colored round paper shades. A wooden ladder led to a loft consisting of a dark wood balcony-style floor that circled the building, presumably to provide extra space or sleeping areas; though a large deep alcove on the ground floor looked like it had been fashioned to contain a bed, with shelves and niches molded into the walls surrounding it, and wooden doors to a cupboard. A kitchen area similar to the one in Carla’s house, on a smaller scale, contained counters, cabinets and drawers. It was less than he was used to at Eagle Hill; kingly in comparison to the tin hut at Gaia. All of the wood in the house was unpainted and stained to bring out its natural color and grain. Such a place would be beyond the average price range in Boston, he was sure, as what it lacked in size it made up for in the care and expertise that had obviously gone into its construction. Even the floor was a small wonder. He’d seen some like it at Gaia while he was helping to build houses, and even assisted with creating one, but he never thought he’d have one to walk on where he lived himself. It was made of adobe too, smooth and compacted, and covered with some kind of sealant – linseed oil, he guessed. He thought he could discern its faint scent lingering in the air.

“Wow, a fireplace,” Victor said, looking at the curved area molded to the side of the house, with an arched recess, dark wood mantel, and bench surrounding it. _[Imagine making love in front of this.]_

Yuuri felt a hot tremor pass through him as he did just that. His cheeks pinked, and he saw Victor slant him a knowing look.

“These houses are superb at regulating temperature,” Carla said in response to Victor’s verbal comment, “but it can get chilly this time of year. I’ll make sure a store of firewood gets dropped off at the back of the house for you.”

Yuuri dragged his thoughts back to reality. “Uh, thanks. Where does this door lead to…?” He walked over to it, only to discover it was an empty broom closet.

“Here’s the one to the annex,” Victor said, pulling another iron-hasped wooden door open. Yuuri followed and looked over his shoulder.

It was a bathroom with a floor of gray flagstones and more bright curtained windows. There was an open showering area, a cream-colored porcelain tub sunk into the floor, a matching sink and mirror, and what looked to Yuuri like a composting toilet.      

 _[I like this,]_ Victor sent.

_[I do too. It makes a big change from an outdoor latrine and shower blocks.]_

Victor turned around and gave him a horrified look.

“What else do you think we did, living in shacks?” Yuuri said aloud, realizing just how miserable Victor would have been in those living arrangements. Not that he’d enjoyed them much himself.

 _[So…?]_ Yuuri looked into his eyes. _[Do we stay?]_

Victor smiled. _[I think we do.]_

“Are you ready to come with me to the warehouse, then?” Carla ventured.

“Please,” Victor replied. “This is more than I would ever have expected. You’re very kind.”

The girlish expression Yuuri had first seen when Carla had approached them near the stores crossed her face briefly again. “I’m happy to help. I hope you’ll both like it here.” She opened the door and they went back out into the bright sunlight, the breeze sighing through the leaves of the overhanging trees.

Two women who Yuuri put in their early forties were standing nearby, watching them curiously. One had short dark brown hair and blue eyes, while the other looked Indian, with large brown eyes and black hair in a braid that hung to her waist. Both were wearing jeans and athletic jackets.

“Hey, Carla,” the short-haired one said, “these news jacks moving in?”

“For now. Alex and Will, meet Sheila and Sumayya. They live in the next house along. You’ll have Lily and Frank on the other side – ”

“But they’re out a lot of the time,” Sheila finished for her. “Wow, flink. New neighbors. Come say hi anytime.”

Carla told the women that the three of them needed to get to the warehouse so that furnishings could be chosen and delivered before the day was out, and they said their goodbyes and walked to a clearing where the wooden building was situated. Yuuri thought it looked like a giant thrift store inside, one large room with furniture and appliances and old-fashioned gadgets arranged in groups. Handing Victor a tablet, Carla invited them to look around and make a list of the tag numbers of items they wanted while she went to speak to the manager. For these things, as well as household necessities at the general store, there would be no charge, she explained, since they would simply be left in the house for the next residents to use if they decided to leave.

Yuuri appreciated the freedom to have a private verbal conversation as they browsed. He ran his finger along the pink upholstery of a chair. Was he really doing this with Victor? It seemed so…domestic. “This is going to be pretty different from sharing a motel room,” he commented. Is…are you OK with it?” He looked at Victor, who had sat down on a putting-green-colored sofa and seemed to be testing its comfort. “I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.” Victor looked up at him, his expression a mix of vulnerability and uncertainty, and Yuuri wondered if he could have phrased his words more tactfully.

“I agree it’s sudden, but I wasn’t sure what else to expect here.” He flashed a smile, though concern lingered in his eyes. “Neighboring tin huts? Sneaking out to visit each other at night?” Yuuri laughed. Victor carried on before he could reply, his voice quieter now. “I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else. Though…if you want some time, if this is too fast, I’ll sleep in the loft area; there’s plenty of room. You could have a bed in the alcove downstairs, and – ”

“Are you crazy?” Yuuri jumped in. “No way. I want to be with you, Victor.” His heart felt like it was glowing as he watched the change in Victor’s expression. He was beaming now, his face full of adoration that Yuuri hardly felt was deserved. As if he’d want to do anything else, after all they’d been through together.

“OK,” Victor said. “But…if I do anything that bothers you – if there are any habits I have that you don’t like – please tell me before…before you get mad, and I don’t understand why.” He gave a little laugh. “Not that it’ll happen, because I’m sure I’m the most perfect person anyone could live with,” he added in a mock-arrogant tone.

Yuuri got the impression he might be talking from experience, and realized he’d never thought through the practical implications of living with Victor. It would be rather different, he knew, from living with someone like Phichit. “You too,” he said. “Tell me.”

Victor nodded and smiled, then stood up. “You know what I want to do? Find the biggest, most comfortable bed they’ve got.”

“Good idea,” Yuuri agreed quickly.

It took some time to select all the items they thought they would need for the house. Yuuri had never enjoyed shopping for furniture or homewares with his parents. He had memories of being a child and playing games like hide and seek with his sister in large stores, seemingly for hours, while the adults took their time with things he could not fathom. He decided that he still couldn’t fathom it, because it wasn’t any more fun now that he was an adult himself. Having to choose from what was here in the warehouse also meant that it wasn’t going to match perfectly, or necessarily appeal to his aesthetic tastes, though he knew they were lucky to have ended up in this situation at all. He appreciated it all the more whenever he thought about the hut he’d been living in.

He also learned that Victor either had similar preferences to his, or was easy about what they chose together. Strange, he thought, how you could love someone with all your heart and not know some of the most basic things about them. Neither of them had chosen the furnishings for their apartments in Boston. What if, given free rein, Victor preferred a riot of clashing colors that looked like an artist’s paintbox had exploded? Or minimalistic metal and glass that were more suitable for a downtown office than a cozy place to live? It didn’t seem to be an issue here, though. Most of the wares on display were subdued, basic, and suitable for just about anywhere. They chose a king-sized bed, a maroon-colored sofa with a velvety pile, a small wooden table with chairs, some wooden floor lamps, an area rug with a swirly pattern of earth tones, and appliances – refrigerator, stove, washing machine, kettle. From the gadget display, Yuuri selected a digital alarm clock. He’d been using a small manual one from the antique store at Gaia, but had left it behind. No radios, again. There were other items such as tablets and cameras that he either already owned or couldn’t see any use for here. When they were done, Victor gave the tablet with their list back to Carla, who was waiting for them at the front where they’d come in.

“I’ve got something for you both from the manager, for you to use while you’re here,” she said, moving to a nearby table on top of which was more old-looking tech. “A laptop for each of you.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened as she removed them from their carrier bags and laid them out. He opened his and looked it over, and Victor did the same. “This must be…what, thirty years old? Older than me.”

“That kind of vintage,” Carla answered. “I know it’s nothing special, but we keep a stock of them. They can be hard to get nowadays. Nobody’s made them for years, not that I’m aware of.”

Victor examined the ports on the side. “Why do you need these? What do you do with them? You have a Cloud café here.”

Carla nodded. “To tell you the truth, it’s functional, but hardly anyone uses it. It’s got the tech and license it needs for access to the Cloud, but we have a LAN that residents within the boundaries of the commune can connect with on whatever devices they have – old laptops like these; tablets. It _is_ illegal, of course, but…well, we fight a constant battle to stay one step ahead of being caught, and we’ve always managed it up to now. Though direct access to the Cloud, by anyone, would bring the authorities down on us, because they’d be traced. Our tech team keeps trying to find ways around it, but that’s a tall order – as I’m sure you understand.”

Yuuri took this in. He realized that his suspicions about this woman had been growing steadily more muted since they’d met her, and he’d begun to feel some admiration now too. It sounded like she was something of a rebel, and he liked that.

“If you were willing to help the tech workshop with that kind of thing, Dr. Nik – Alex, sorry – we’d really appreciate it,” she said. “Maybe we could finally make some more headway. Anyway, we can talk about that later. I think it’s about time for dinner to be served – if you’d like to come to the dining hall with me?”

They followed her there and ate from a buffet, and Yuuri was gratified to be able to eat a meal that was mostly paleo. Carla explained that with the stove and refrigerator that were being delivered for them, they would be able to cook in their house if they wanted, but they would also be welcome to eat meals here, either paying as they went or having the charges subtracted from their earnings if they came regularly. While they ate, she introduced them to a couple of other area councilors, using their aliases, and opened the laptops on the long table in order to set them up on the LAN. She said they would be able to message or call people at the commune now, as well as being able to indirectly access Cloud sites.

Once the process was completed, Carla invited them to tell her a little about the scientific work they’d done before they’d come to the commune, while they had coffee and tea. She was polite and interested in a bit of a fangirlish way. Yuuri hesitated, not out of fear or distrust, but because the topic made his heart sink. How could he assume the air of a confident practicing scientist when he’d been living in trains and huts and hotels for weeks on end, and might never find work in his field again? Fortunately, however, Victor easily moved in to fill the lull in the conversation, smoothly reeling off a list of achievements like someone who’d done it a hundred times. Maybe he had. Yuuri noticed he was careful not to mention any of the work he’d done for the Institute, though again, that was something he had clearly been used to, because he hadn’t even told Yuuri about it until circumstances had forced it from him. Though that was water under the bridge by now, he reminded himself.

Eventually the conversation returned to the present, and Carla gave them each a metal front door key, telling them that while crime was almost nonexistent at the commune because people knew each other, everyone still had the right to keep their possessions secure. They double-checked with her that there were no security cameras on site, and she reassured them that was the last thing they wanted. Then the warehouse crew called her on her tablet, saying they would be finished at the house within the hour. After she ended the call, she suggested they pass the remaining time by stocking up on food and supplies, as the general store was open around the clock. She gave them each a paper map of the commune in a leaflet format of the type that a tourist might use, though she said there was also one available on the commune’s Cloud site if they wanted to call it up on their tablets. After offering to escort them to the store, which they politely said would not be necessary, she arranged to meet them at their house at nine the next morning to take them to breakfast, and they said their goodbyes outside the dining hall, Yuuri and Victor thanking her sincerely for everything she’d done.

“She’s no agent,” Victor said quietly as they watched her disappear down the path, which was illuminated in the dark by tall carved wooden lights that emitted a soft white glow.

“You’re right. If we hadn’t…been through what we have, if I was just visiting from Boston, I would’ve laughed you out of town if you’d told me you were afraid she was somebody sinister. But I guess you can never be too careful.” He gave Victor a smile. “Trust you to attract attention.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s OK,” Yuuri added hastily. “I used to see you like that. Like she does. But after working with you, and…and falling in love with you, I don’t feel like I’m looking at a celebrity scientist anymore. It’s just you. Though there’s no ‘just’ about it.” He sighed. “I’m making a mess of this.”

Victor gave him a warm grin. “Oh, Yuuri. I’m touched.”

Yuuri looked at him quietly, deciding he would like nothing better than to sit and stare into his eyes and hold him for a long time. But they didn’t have a house to go to yet. “Well it sounds like we ought to go pick up some supplies, because otherwise people carrying appliances will be shoving us out of the way. Back to the general store?”

“OK. I’ll let you choose the soap.”

“Wow, that’s a big responsibility. Only if you choose the laundry liquid.”

“And you can get the furniture polish.”

“What’s that when it’s at home?” Yuuri laughed.

“Come on,” Victor said with a smirk, urging him along with a quick hand on his waist.

Yuuri had been half-joking about the furniture polish. He’d been used to the cleaning robot coming to his apartment once a week, though he generally tried to keep things tidy between its visits. Still, it was odd to think he was going to have to keep house the good old-fashioned way now…and with Victor. He tried hard to adjust to the idea while they browsed in the store and chose items that would fulfil their immediate needs, and only what they would be able to carry back between them in the burlap bags they were given. They chatted about food on the way to the house. Victor told Yuuri he was looking forward to meals cooked by him again, though he insisted there was no need for anything fancy, and he would do his best to contribute as well. Maybe Yuuri could teach him some things, he said as they arrived at the front door, which had been left ajar. There was no sign of anyone around, though the lights were on inside, and Yuuri could see that the furniture and appliances they’d chosen in the warehouse had been delivered and put in place.

“I think _you_ could teach me some things, too,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes with a smile.

“Oh yes, as much as you want,” Victor replied, making no attempt to hide his eagerness.

“Let’s get in the house first. We’ve got all this stuff to put away.”

“Spoilsport.”

Yuuri unpacked the groceries they’d bought while Victor found places to put towels, soap, utensils, and the other wares from his own bags. They had a lighthearted discussion while they worked.

“I can’t make oyakodon yet with these ingredients, but I could do omelets.”

“Yuuri, do you share towels, or should we each have our own?”

His stomach fluttered at the unfamiliarity of the situation. A romantic date with chocolates and roses this was not. How would you “date” somebody you lived with, anyway? What was romantic about deciding whose turn it was to clean the floor or what color toilet paper matched the bathroom? Not for the first time, or the thousandth, Yuuri was frustrated with his lack of experience in relationships. And what if theirs changed now? Well, it was bound to. What if, despite how they felt about each other, they didn’t actually get along as housemates? That would be a disaster. On top of it, they didn’t know what jobs they would be expected to do daily here at the commune. How long they would stay. How close the agents were on their trail…

“Yuuri.” The voice came from behind him, and Yuuri spun around to see Victor standing there, looking at him with concern.

“I’m sorry, I…” He swallowed in a constricted throat, realizing the familiar dark tendrils had been feeling their way through his system as his brain stewed.  

“Oh, sweetheart. I know this is going to take some getting used to. But I’m glad I’m here with you.”

Yuuri wasn’t sure how many of the anxious thoughts and images Victor had picked up on. He’d been horrified to discover he’d accidentally sent them in the rail yard. “Me too,” he said. “I’ll try not to worry too much.”

Victor chuckled. “Yuuri Katsuki not worrying is like the sun not rising in the morning.” He cupped his cheek. “But I love you.” And he bent down to give him a tender kiss. Yuuri felt it melting the cold fear away until there was only Victor and his touch. “It’s late,” Victor finally said, drawing back a little.

“I know. I still need to finish putting these groceries away.”

“I’ll help. And…after that, why don’t we have a shower together? Sounds relaxing after a long day.”

“Mmm.” Yuuri looked at him with a grin, the blood starting to race through his veins again for an entirely different reason.

“And if you feel up to it…we have a bed over there to commission.”

Yuuri pulled him in for another kiss. “Yes, please,” he whispered.


	54. Chapter 54

Yuuri wasn’t sure where he was at first when he opened his eyes. Sun was streaming in. The bed was more comfortable than anything he’d slept in since he’d been in his apartment. It was empty next to him. His hand groped out and felt cold, rumpled sheets. Where was Victor?

He sat up, rubbing his eyes, the sheet falling down his bare chest to pool at his waist. Well, he couldn’t expect every morning to start with a long, leisurely cuddle, could he? Maybe their honeymoon period, if the limbo of fleeing from agents could be called that, was already over, and this was real life, with coffee and work…of a kind. He supposed they’d find out today what that was. They were at the commune, of course. In their own house. And last night… _oh,_ last night they’d –

“Yuuri, good morning!” Victor’s voice called from across the room. It went against nature, he thought, for anyone to be so chipper this early. How early was it…? He looked at the glowing blue numbers of the old alarm clock that had been plugged in and placed on a nearby shelf. Twenty past eight. Well, he often used to be at MIT at that time. He’d gotten lazy since he’d left, that was what had happened.

Victor came to sit on the bed next to him. He was wearing his pink shirt and slacks from the day before, which struck Yuuri as something he would never do unless he had no other option. “How’s my Zvezda?” he said, brushing a hand down Yuuri’s cheek. “I thought you might want to sleep a while yet, so I didn’t wake you.”

“Thanks, but I would’ve liked it,” Yuuri told him with a smile. “I think waking up next to you is going to be one of my favorite things. If I just mumble and tug the sheets over my head, you’ll know I want to sleep.” Victor paused to take this in, and Yuuri pulled him in gently for a kiss. “Not fair, you’ve got clothes on.”

“I can change that,” Victor said invitingly against his lips.

“As much as I’d like to say yes, I guess I’d better get ready. And you don’t have any clean clothes, do you?”

Victor plucked at a sleeve. “Um. No.”

“Have you put anything in the washing machine?”

“Well, I’ve been so busy looking around since I got up, and I only just now thought to get dressed…”

Yuuri blinked. “You’ve been wandering around nude all morning?”

“Yes,” Victor replied as if the answer should be obvious.

He laughed and shook his head. “OK.”

“I made some of the instant coffee we bought last night. It’s not very nice. I think I need to find one of those cafetieres like Carla’s got.”

“We’ll have to go back to the general store sometime today after we’ve thought some more about what else we need to get. They’re gonna love us there before long.”

“Maybe I should find a robe, too. I know Chris would ask me what on earth I was doing if I went around the apartment nude…” He put a hand to his lips in thought. “No, actually, that’s wrong. He’d…I don’t know. We both have some unconventional habits, I suppose.” As Yuuri continued to look, he added hastily, “Not that we…I mean, we never – ”

“Even if you did, that’s your life,” Yuuri said. “As long as you don’t have any plans to keep going with it, now that we’re together.”

“No, of course not. Not that we did. Or do. How did we get onto this subject?” he said with a bemused little smile.

“You wearing a robe.”

“Yes. I’ll do that.”

“I’m not Chris,” Yuuri said in a low voice, trailing a finger down his shirt. “But I have to admit you’d be pretty distracting wandering around in the nude.”

“Oh good.”

“Go put your stuff in the washing machine, and I’ll add mine in a minute,” Yuuri said, giving him a playful push. “I’d better get up.”

Victor snuck another kiss, then went to sort through his backpack. Yuuri swung his legs out of the bed and stood, the earthen floor slightly warm and rough under his feet, like the ground outside after months with no rain. It was oddly enjoyable. But unlike Victor, he still didn’t feel comfortable striding around with no clothes on. If you looked like you’d just walked off a plinth, fair enough, he supposed. He dug some clothes out of his backpack and put them on, wondering what to do about carrying it around. He’d unpacked his clothes at Gaia, though he always kept some spare inside. His money was in a zipped inner pocket. It had truly been a lot of work guarding it at Gaia when he did jobs; the main reason he hadn’t left it in his hut was because it wasn’t secure. He could lock it inside this house – but what if an agent showed up and they had to run? He pulled a hand over his chin in thought, noting absently that it was rough and he ought to find time to shave before he went out.

“Are you going to keep your backpack with you, or leave it here?” he called to Victor, who was putting his clothes in the washing machine.

“I think it’s best if I take it with me. I’m used to that now, anyway.”

Yuuri nodded. “Are you going to need the bathroom before we leave?”

“No, take your time.”

 _God, this feels so weird,_ he mused, backpack in hand as he padded across the floor to the cool flagstones of the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Victor had already placed his toiletries in the cabinet under the sink, and he pulled his own out and put them on another shelf; there weren’t many. He was struck again by how unromantic it was to be taking turns in the bathroom and washing their clothes. But…but. There was something else, too. He looked around the bright round room, taking in the rose-scented soap on the dish in the shower that he’d chosen in the general store, the toothpaste and brush Victor had left at the side of the sink, the used towel from last night tossed in a corner. There was an intimate feel to it, perhaps because of its very mundane nature. They were sharing their day-to-day lives, ordinary but personal little things that the rest of the world did not get to see as a rule. In a way it made Yuuri feel exposed. But with that exposure came the possibility of reward in what Victor was offering him, and what he in turn was offering Victor: trust and acceptance.   

 _Deep thoughts for eight-something-o’clock on a weekday morning while you’re staring at somebody else’s toothbrush, Yuuri Katsuki._ He huffed a laugh and sprayed some shaving foam into his hand.

***

There was a definite chill in the air, Yuuri noted as they walked with Carla to breakfast. He was used to being near San Diego, but now they were five hundred kilometers away, northeast of San Francisco, and it was December to boot. The fleece he was wearing would be OK for the daytime, but he decided he would have to find something to go under or over it in the mornings and evenings. For now, though, it would do.

He enjoyed a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and grapefruit, and Victor had porridge with raspberries on top, while Carla chatted with them over buttered toast and yogurt. She said she’d arrange for a cafetiere to be sent, and asked them if they’d had a chance to try the LAN; they hadn’t. Once they did get on, they should feel free to call or message her if they needed anything, she told them.

When they were done eating and had had hot drinks, she took them on a tour of the commune that lasted the rest of the morning. Yuuri expressed surprise and gratitude that she would spend so much time with them, but she said it was a normal part of the work she did as a councilor, though her pleasure in his comment was clear. They passed empty cars that could be used as taxis or rented by arrangement over the LAN. As they walked along the edge of forest land, Carla pointed out the best road to take to Sonora, four kilometers to the southwest. They’d find outdoor supplies there if they needed them, an antique store that the commune did regular business with, restaurants, nightlife, and so on – though they also had the usual surveillance cameras, she was quick to inform them. 

After this, she took them to a house-building site, which looked familiar to Yuuri after the work he’d done at Gaia. She said their help would be appreciated here some mornings or afternoons, though they would have to work out a schedule. Next they visited the elementary school – the secondary schools being in Sonora, she explained, which was able to offer better facilities than they could with their comparatively small population – and the principal, a friendly young black woman, showed them around. While it hadn’t yet been mentioned, Yuuri remembered what Carla had said the day before about how they needed help with teaching. He tried to imagine himself standing in front of a group of ten-year-olds, and his stomach gave a lurch. Maybe there were other things he could do here, which he would readily suggest if necessary.

The tech workshop looked like a poor ancient cousin of the MIT engineering department, though that in itself was no insult. Modern tech appeared to be in short supply, but he caught glimpses of it from underneath piles of circuit boards, wires, cables, plugs, and clunky-looking pieces of metal. A balding man with salt-and-pepper hair around his ears greeted them and said he and his team would be glad to have their help; he himself spent most of his time there working out how to adapt old laptops and their software to the modern needs of people at the commune, with the eventual aim of being able to produce their own. Yuuri saw Victor’s eyes light up as he looked around, and he thought of his tech-scattered office at Harvard and what he’d said about his father’s workshop, and hoped he might be able to spend some hours of contentment here.

Having agreed that they would go to work at the house-building site the following morning, and then Victor would spend the afternoon at the workshop while Yuuri went to the school, they said goodbye to Carla and returned to their house, having been given the afternoon to get settled in and look around the area if they wanted. Yuuri made them each an omelet while Victor prepared some fruit salad.

“My body isn’t tired, but my brain is,” Yuuri said while they sat at their little wooden table and ate. “I can tell you about the ion channel properties underlying axonal action potential initiation in pyramidal neurons, but ask me to move into a new commune and work at an elementary school? Now _that’s_ tough.”

Victor chuckled. “I’d rather be researching action potentials, too. I know what you mean. Don’t forget, we’ve also got a whole new house to settle into…and we’ve just moved into it together.” He gave him a smile. “I’m looking forward to it, but it all does feel new right now. Just give it some time.”

Yuuri stared at him, his mouth gradually widening into a relieved grin. Victor didn’t need ESP to be able to put him at his ease. How did he do it? “Yeah. Though I’m wondering when we’re going to get this firewood. It’s kind of cold in here.” He thought for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t matter today; we’ve got so much to do. More shopping. That cooker and I need to make friends; it’s got some weird quirks. We need more things to eat off of, and kitchen gadgets. I can imagine myself wanting to reach for a whisk or a grater or a peeler while I’m trying to cook; it’s all pretty basic. I wonder where you can buy things like mirin around here…”

“I wouldn’t mind having a look around this nearby town, if we have time,” Victor added.

“Surveillance cameras, remember.”

“Of course I remember. That’s not a problem…is it?”

Yuuri sighed, putting his fork down after finishing his last bite of fruit salad. “To be honest, Victor, it’s hard to remember to do the shielding all the time. I didn’t want to say, and worry you. But without some kind of timer to remind me to do it every ten minutes…Well, it’s one thing when I know I’m in a town, and there will be cameras around. When I’m in a hotel room, or…or here, and I’d only be doing it to try to…to keep Crow out, and I don’t know how well that’s working or how often I need to do it – ”

“Me too,” Victor said quietly. “But I try my best.” Blue eyes searched his. “I want you to be safe. Why don’t we practice now, before we do anything else?”

Yuuri nodded. “I guess it might help.”

They cleared their lunch things away and tried sending energy at one another and blocking it, though Yuuri knew they were also being careful not to hurt each other, and he wasn’t sure they were achieving much. Using the GPS seemed to be a better idea, however, as he and Victor both succeeded in preventing it from locating them. A piece of tech was not the equivalent of a human brain, of course, but Yuuri felt he could rest a little easier. And…if they could block a GPS signal, it occurred to him that it might be possible to block a chip signal to the Cloud as well, even if the chip was inside someone else. He mentioned it to Victor, who was intrigued and said they should put the idea to the test in Sonora.

It was a forty-minute walk along a winding path through trees and gentle hills. The town itself seemed to be typical of others of its size, with nothing unusual to see. “Let’s have a coffee,” Yuuri suggested while they strolled down a sidewalk. They were still wary of main streets, and ventured down smaller ones where they could. There was a coffee house on the corner up ahead. “People will be sitting inside, accessing the Cloud over their chip.”

Victor gave him a mischievous smile. “If this works, we’re going to be sending the nearest tech shop a lot of business. They’ll think their chips have malfunctioned.”

“And if it doesn’t work, at least we’ll know.” Yuuri opened the door, and they were enveloped by warmth and the aroma of brewing coffee. Like most of its kind, the store was decked out in brown paint and dark wood, with a large window at the front. Victor got a latte, Yuuri a cocoa and mint tea, and they found a table in a corner. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the shop was doing good business.

“So,” Victor murmured between sips of coffee, “do we aim to block a single person, or a radius? How does this work, exactly?”

“You’re asking me?” Yuuri laughed. “I’m on the same learning curve as you. But…why don’t we try a radius for a start. If it works, see how far we can take it. Or…or just me. Let’s see if one person can have an effect before we try two.”

“Excellent methodology, Doctor. Let’s see what you can do.”

Yuuri fought down a sly grin, closed his eyes, and sipped his tea, focusing on extending the radius of his shield. He imagined a giant umbrella covering…for a start, just themselves and the neighboring tables and booths. Made it as real and impregnable as he could. Nothing could get through it, he thought over and over. Nothing…

He’d allowed himself to get so lost in his task that it took him a moment to realize Victor was trying to get his attention by whispering his name. He opened his eyes and looked across at him.

“It’s working,” Victor said, his eyes dancing. “Watch and listen.”

Yuuri did. He knew how reliant people tended to be on their chips. While they were drinking and eating and talking, they would also be accessing Cloud sites, possibly playing continual music or listening to news in the background, making calls, sending messages, taking and posting photos. The men and women surrounding them had suddenly been rudely interrupted, and were making astounded and annoyed noises, looking around the room as if the answer to the problem should be in plain sight. Then they started discussing connections and when and where they’d had their chips installed. It was practically unheard of for a Cloud connection to fail. It was everywhere, and well maintained.

“I have an idea,” Victor said in a low voice. He leaned over and spoke to a young Malaysian man in a white jacket sitting by himself at a nearby table who had a blank look and a wrinkled brow. “Excuse me, but have you lost your Cloud connection? Mine doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Yeah, mine’s not working either,” the man replied. “I’m picked, bo. I was on a conference call.”

“I wonder if something in here might be interfering. Maybe if we got up and headed outside?”

“That don’t make no sense. I’ve never had that happen before. But my chip’s never ghosted like this either.” He stood, and Victor winked at Yuuri before he followed.

“Hey, it’s working again,” the man said before they’d gone far. He gazed at Victor with sudden respect. “Maybe you’re right, something over there was jamming me. Trippy.” He went back to his table, picked up his coffee cup, saucer and brownie on a plate, and found a free stool at a bar against the far wall. Having heard their conversation, the other patrons in the area changed seats as well.

Victor returned to the table and sat back down. “Eureka,” he said softly, his eyes positively devilish.

Yuuri wasn’t the type to gloat. Or so he believed. But he was full of a rare sense of power, and didn’t mind taking a moment to savor it. “Wicked swit,” he said with a smirk. Victor laughed.

They experimented a while longer until half the people in the building were befuddled, then tried other stores along the street. Yuuri discovered that he could affect an area the size of a living room, for about ten minutes. Victor achieved roughly the same on his own. Together, however, they were able to double the radius, again for about ten minutes. It left a lot of people wandering around with confused or frustrated expressions, complaining to storekeepers when they were present, and exchanging theories about what could have happened. The few unchipped people in attendance became noticeable as well; they simply continued with what they were doing, unfazed, sometimes slightly bemused by the hubbub around them. While Yuuri was delighted with what he and Victor had achieved, he didn’t take pleasure in the worry they had spread, and consoled himself with the fact that the effect was only temporary, and they hadn’t physically damaged anything.

Victor was buoyant on the walk back to the commune. “You were brilliant, Yuuri!” he enthused.

“So were you.” He also had tamari, mirin, Indian spices, and other ingredients for Asian cooking in a bag in his backpack, which gave him an additional sense of satisfaction. It had been a long time since he’d had the chance to cook his favorite foods in his own house just for himself. And now he’d have the opportunity to share them with Victor. “I’ve been trying to think of applications,” he added. “We still can’t contact anyone with a chip, because this stuff only works for short distances.”

“But it _does_ mean we can have a private conversation with someone who’s chipped, if we’re with them. Maybe in the future that’ll come in useful.”

“Maybe,” Yuuri agreed, wondering, not for the first time, how long they were destined to stay here, and under what circumstances they would leave, of their own choosing or someone else’s.

When they returned to the house, they unpacked the goods they’d bought, including a heavy navy-blue jacket for Yuuri and more shirts and pants for Victor. By then it was already time for dinner, and they decided it would be quick and easy to go to the dining hall. Victor had also expressed a wish to check out the gym facility that was shown on the map, near the river, and they agreed to do so after they’d eaten. They hadn’t even had time to try the LAN yet, Yuuri realized. Or to visit the general store. Where had all the hours in the day gone?

Victor had chosen pepperoni pizza and a side salad for dinner, while Yuuri just had salad, noticing the carb-heavy options on offer and feeling mildly disappointed. They were discussing their trip to Sonora that day when Yuuri felt it: a light jolt pricking at his skin. Like the tingle of anticipation before a lightning strike, but not so dramatic; poised just on the edge of awareness. If he hadn’t been using ESP that day, so that his mind was sharp and alert, he might have missed it, he thought. It wasn’t anything he had felt before. Crow was different. Victor was, too; Yuuri was so used to his static hum that he hardly even noticed it now. This had a higher pitch, if such a description could be applicable; and reaching out to it, as he attempted tentatively, felt somehow like reaching for a frayed wire or a short circuit. His mind was led to a woman seated several tables away, with three young children. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with short fluffy blond hair and watery gray eyes. And she was staring at him.

 _[Do you feel it?]_ he sent to Victor as he looked away, not wanting it to seem, now they’d made eye contact, that they were whispering about her.

Victor’s eyes darted up to his, his fork poised above his salad bowl. _[?]_

 _[There’s a woman over there with ESP.]_ When Victor began to turn around, he added, _[Don’t. She’s already spotted us.]_

_[Do you think she’s a threat?]_

Yuuri wrinkled his brow, focusing on the tingling feeling. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Agents don’t all have ESP. And not all people with ESP are agents. But…” He was struggling to put a finger on it. Something was bothering him, something that didn’t have anything to do with the question of whether or not she knew who they were. Yuuri thought it unlikely anyway, after having met Onawa and Rahul. The possession of ESP was, he decided, more likely to make someone a target of the Institute than an employee of theirs.

 _[I can feel it, now you’ve said,]_ Victor sent. _[I don’t have much context because you’re the only other one I’ve ever felt. But there’s something…odd about it.]_

Yuuri folded his hands in front of his face and closed his eyes in concentration. After a minute, he sent, _[She’s frightened. I don’t know why. Not of something particular. It’s scattered. I don’t know how to describe it.]_

_[Anxiety.]_

Yuuri opened his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. I hope I don’t send vibes like that.”

“Not usually, no.” Victor paused and grinned. “The feel of you is like…eating ice cream, only not cold.” He laughed. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it.”

Yuuri quirked him a smile. “It’s kind of sexy.”

“It is.”

He slanted another glance at the woman, who was tending to one of her children. None of them seemed to want to sit still. Was that what the anxiety was about? Was there a father here? Had they even read her correctly, or did that nebulous fear have a different origin? Maybe it was the kinds of things that worried most people. Job. Relationships. Money. Who knew. He supposed it wasn’t any of his business.

He considered introducing himself to her later, if not now. She clearly had her hands full here, with three squirming little children. But when…?

Yuuri decided he was in no hurry.


	55. Chapter 55

_My house_ , Victor thought fondly. _My…partner, isn’t that what I called him? Lover. I like it. But they don’t tend to say that here._

The lights were on inside, as the sun dipped low over the horizon. It was like a parent-and-child igloo, this place, he decided. Or two egg-halves, one from an ostrich and one from a goose. All of it slapped over with clay. But the round forms were pleasing somehow. Like they were inviting a giant’s hand to cup them perfectly. And the lack of corners, inside and out, smoothed the abrasiveness from his moods. Or so it seemed. This was only their second full day here, after all.

Inside was that soft warmth that let you sink into it and held you up at the same time. He could feel it, now. Ice cream that wasn’t cold. His heart skipped a beat. They’d been apart all day. He’d missed him.

“It smells amazing in here,” he said, inhaling the aroma of Yuuri’s cooking as he walked through the front door and locked it behind him, then put his backpack on the floor and hung his jacket on a wooden peg. He was wearing grey slacks and his sky-blue shirt, the one he’d given Yuuri on the train when…well, that was why he’d chosen it. He’d felt sexy in it all afternoon. God, the way Yuuri had looked…

“Hi,” he said, turning around with a smile, wooden spoon in hand. Victor joined him in the little kitchenette and slid an arm around his waist, dipping down for a kiss just as Yuuri tilted his head up and made a little hum. He never wanted to stop. But then this aromatic thing Yuuri was cooking would burn, and he supposed that wouldn’t be good. “How did things go today?” Yuuri asked, breaking away and giving the pot a stir.

Victor reluctantly dropped his arm and moved aside to give Yuuri space to work. “I like the workshop. Herb – the man you met there yesterday – is nice. Carla came in for a while, too. I could spend a lot of time there, I think. Just tinkering with things. Maybe even inventing, if I can gather together enough modern tech. A lot of it comes from the antique store, I think. Refitting old tech to suit the needs of people who don’t have chips.”

Yuuri nodded. “Do you want rice with this?”

“What is it, curry?”

“Chicken curry, yeah. Though don’t let the Patels hear you say that. Calling Indian food ‘curry’ is like – ”

“ – calling Italian food ‘spaghetti.’ ” Yuuri laughed to hear him recall what he’d said in his apartment. “What’s the proper name of this dish, then?”

“I think Rahul would call it marghanu shaak. It’s pretty quick and easy to make. I haven’t been back long myself, but I wanted to use some of the things I picked up in town yesterday. So…rice?”

“Are you cooking any?…No, I guess not. Don’t cook any specially for me. I’ll love it however you serve it, I’m sure. You’ll have to teach me how to cook these things. I could do it, you know. Then I could make your favorite food for you.”

“Or we could do it together.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“OK.” Yuuri laid the spoon on the wooden cutting board, put a lid on the pot and turned the heat down. “This has to simmer, just to reduce the sauce and let the flavors amalgamate. Not for long, though.”

“You can leave it alone for a while?”

Yuuri nodded, looking at him. He was wearing dark brown pants with a black leather belt, and a button-down long-sleeved white shirt, which meant he’d come back to change clothes before he’d gone to the school. Victor had done the same after finishing at the building site; they must have just missed each other. They’d been about to head out to the site together that morning when Carla had appeared at the door, asking if one of them could accompany her to a farm because they were very short-staffed, and apologizing for disrupting their first work day. Yuuri had volunteered to go, and that had been the last Victor had seen of him until now. Though they both had their tablets on them, and had successfully exchanged brief messages that were little more than trial runs of the LAN. It was slow and not very reliable, but more than Victor had expected to be available to them here. They’d reached out to each other a few times with ESP, sending warm feelings, but the concrete use of words was desirable to have as well.

“Why don’t we go to the sofa then,” he said in a low voice, “and lie down together, and you can tell me about your day.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t seem to find words. Eventually he said with pink cheeks, “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. I…um, would get distracted.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “I’m distracting? That’s the second time you’ve said so in as many days.”

“Of course you are,” Yuuri laughed. “Everything about you is…distracting,” he finished on a wavering note, then swallowed.

Victor reached a hand around his back and gave him a deep kiss to show him just how distracting he could be, and how glad he was to see him after a day apart. Their tongues entwined, and Yuuri let out a little moan. But he’d only just said that this was not what he wanted to do right now, not while dinner was cooking and would be ready soon. Despite the fact that his body was saying something else, and so was Victor’s. Yuuri was here, living with him, invitingly available; and he’d have to exercise some self-control – and help Yuuri to do it as well – if they were going to live normal lives instead of spending every spare minute in bed together…or on the sofa…or in front of the fireplace, once they had wood…Oh, it was so tempting. But he was better than this, he told himself.

“Yuuri, I…you’re right, you’re cooking lovely food, and I’m not going to spoil it,” he said, pulling away.

To his surprise, Yuuri cupped a palm to his cheek, gave him a heated look, caught him bottom lip in another brief kiss, then said, “I’ll behave myself, too.” With a smile, he turned to the cooker, stirred the curry, and then took a head of broccoli from the fridge and placed it on the cutting board. “ _That’s_ what I forgot to get earlier – a steamer. Of all the things. I ought to make a list. I’ll just have to boil it for now.” He pulled another pot from a cabinet.

“So,” Victor said in a conversational tone, giving Yuuri his space again and leaning on the counter, “what I’d really like to know is, what did you do at the farm? Had you ever been on one before?”

Yuuri glanced at him with a chuckle. While he tended to the food, or just leaned against the counter like Victor, he explained. No, he’d never been on a farm before, but Carla or someone else had been on hand to show him what to do. He’d put hay out in the fields, collected eggs, even milked some cows. He’d helped groom horses too, though he’d never laid a finger on one before then. Or a cow, for that matter. It had all made an interesting change from what he was used to, though he couldn’t imagine doing it every day; he’d be very fit, he reckoned, but his brain would atrophy eventually, with nothing more than that to work on. He’d finished there by noon, bought some produce from their farm shop, went to the dining hall for lunch with Carla, and then was escorted by her to the school. Afterward, he’d gone to the general store, where he’d been greeted by name, and had returned to the house. “I thought, after all those trips there, we finally had everything we needed,” he muttered.

“Ah, Yuuri. You must’ve discovered when you moved into your apartment that days and weeks went by where you kept realizing there was something else you needed.”

He stood and thought, then gave the curry another stir.

 _No? Well, you did live all that time out of a backpack in a shack, so maybe I missed the mark there,_ Victor mused. “You didn’t say what you’d done at the school. Will you be going back?”

“I was just observing today. Carla talked me into it, saying that was all she was asking me to do. You know how she is. Polite and persuasive, but nice at the same time. No wonder she’s a politician.” Victor laughed. “I mean, I like kids. I always have. But I don’t know…the ones I saw today could, and maybe should, have gone on a trip to that farm where I worked and helped with all of those things themselves, they had that much energy to burn off. And of course they don’t just want me to come in and watch; they’re hoping I’m going to be willing to teach lessons.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest, then blew out a breath. “They said there’s no pressure – there never is, is there? That’s what everybody always says. And if I did agree to teach, they said it’d only need to be science.”

“But you’ve taught people with PhDs,” Victor put in.

“Believe me, compared to a rambunctious seven-year-old? That’s nothing.” He huffed a laugh. “Well, I said I’d consider it, anyway. I’ve got access to the Cloud, or I should – I haven’t had a chance to open that goddamn laptop since we got it – and the teachers have already given me some lesson ideas…”

“And?” Victor prompted, imagining him in front of a class of children and feeling his heart begin to melt.

“They want me to demonstrate science-y things.”

“Science-y things?”

“Yeah. Experiments. Burning things, blowing things up, and so on.” He chuckled. “Think I could do that?”

“I think you’d be amazing.”

He shrugged. “It’s not exactly neuroscience, but…maybe I could get into it. What have I got to lose, right?” He turned and gave the pot a final stir. “Curry’s ready.”

While they ate, Victor told Yuuri about the house-building. He said it was good exercise, though there was a lot he’d need to learn, and he confessed his back was sore from bending over to make mud bricks for a couple of hours. Yuuri laughed and said that sounded familiar. They agreed that they would also pack a change of clothes to take along with them in the future, so that there would be no need to hurry back to the house for that, and they could either take their time with a packed lunch or eat together in the dining hall. Though they’d have to play it by ear daily, from the look of it, as their schedules seemed subject to change depending on who needed the most help at the commune.

When they finished eating, Victor insisted on washing the dishes while Yuuri sat on the sofa with his laptop. “This seems a fair division of labor, doesn’t it?” he said while Yuuri flipped the screen open and pushed the power button.

Yuuri made a noncommittal sound. “I think I got the better of it. Cooking is fun. Washing dishes not so much. Well, fun maybe, if you’re not doing it for eighty people without any tech like food processors.”

“Are you sure you didn’t wander into a prison camp by mistake?”

“It was OK when Rahul was there. Jignesh too.”

“I hope I can meet them one day.”

There was a pause as Yuuri’s face was lit by colored flashes from his screen. “I hope so, too,” he said quietly. “The LAN works. Carla did a good job setting it up. I’m gonna see if I can get on some Cloud sites.”

Victor was drying their drinking glasses when he heard a happy exclamation come from the sofa.

“It dinged! This thing’s got working speakers.”

“That’s good,” Victor laughed, storing the glasses in a cupboard, though it hardly seemed necessary. They’d come as a set of four and were all they had to drink from besides a couple of small tumblers next to the bathroom sink.   

“Good? You better believe it’s good. We can listen to music now!” His brown eyes glimmered with delight as he peered over his screen at Victor. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to do that outside of a Cloud café? I’ve been starved of this.”

Victor smiled as he dried the cooking pot. Yuuri’s enthusiasm had a way of getting into him and sinking right into his bones. It dissolved the aches from the brick-making, leaving in their place a contended hum.

“I wonder where I should start. What I should play.”

“I’m not picky,” Victor said, “but I don’t think I could put up with any shack music. Chris likes to play it, and – ”

“Did I ever put shack on a playlist? Sounds like a construction site. No thanks.” He paused. “Though CloudTunes is suggesting a song by Nendroid. And one by Horcrux. Why is it suggesting things when it doesn’t know who the hell I am? It’s pathetic.”

“If you play those, I might have to confiscate your laptop,” Victor said, wondering if he could be bothered to fill the sink with soapy water and wipe the surfaces down. It would be the responsible thing to do. That didn’t mean he did it all the time, however. Or very often. But he would do it for Yuuri. He turned on the faucet and squirted the liquid soap.

While he was running a cloth over the counter near the cooker, the unmistakable opening electric guitar notes of “Johnny B. Goode” vibrated through the air. Not something he’d ever heard until it had come up on Yuuri’s playlist one day when they were out for a jog along the river. It was the kind of song that made you want to keep moving. These laptop speakers did it no justice at all, however: Chuck Berry’s voice reaching across the decades, and the rollicking music behind it; but they sounded like they were underwater, and the bass notes were missing. It was unnatural; a crime. Like a pizza with no crust. A curry without the spices. It was also, as Yuuri had rightly said, the first music he’d been able to listen to outside of a Cloud café in a long time, and he suddenly realized how much he’d missed it himself.

He dropped the cloth back into the sink and turned around, to see that Yuuri had left the laptop on the sofa and was dancing, spinning and twisting to the bouncing rhythm, hips swaying, arms waving. When he spotted Victor, he gave him a smile and let out a laugh full of pure, bubbling _joy_ for the first time since Victor could remember. He smiled back and stood and gazed, transfixed. There were few things more sublime than watching Yuuri dance. He was like the ripples in a stream, or the trails of cream in a latte, smooth and flowing, beautiful and enticing, punctuated by sudden bursts as he snapped his back or legs or hips. Victor found himself wondering what it would have been like if he’d joined his ballet class all those years ago.

Yuuri suddenly stopped and held out his hand, and it was Victor’s turn to be all smiles as he joined him. He raised Yuuri’s arm, spun around underneath it, and they both danced to the rest of the song, anticipating each other’s moves. Victor wondered how much of it might be unconscious use of ESP between them, and how much was simply intuitive. He thought he remembered it feeling just this good the very first time Yuuri pulled him into a dance. That night at the banquet. How could he ever have dreamed they’d end up here, like this?

When the song ended, Yuuri took a step back and looked at him with those sparkling eyes. “You’re thinking about dancing at the banquet,” he said. “I was, too. Only, I’m not lanced this time. That’s got to be a bonus.” His voice quietened. “I wish I could remember.”

Victor was about to remind Yuuri he had photos, though he bit the words back. That wasn’t the same as remembering. But he could take some new photos now, and they would both remember. Trotting over to his backpack, he unzipped a small pocket and removed his aircam. It would’ve been crass, he’d thought, to take pictures like a tourist while they’d been running from agents and trying to put things right with each other. But maybe it would be different now that they were here. He rejoined Yuuri in front of the sofa and tossed the camera into the air, having set it to a program that would enable it to take random pictures from different angles.

“You want photos of this?” Yuuri said, eyeing it.

“This is one of my favorite things. Dancing with you. Can I choose a song?”

Yuuri moved aside, and he typed the title into the Cloud site. “While we’re playing oldies,” he said. He watched recognition dawn in Yuuri’s eyes as “I Want You” by Savage Garden started to play.

“I love this one.”

“Come on, then,” Victor said with a hint of challenge in his voice, his body already starting to respond to the music.

Doing this with Yuuri was both sensual and freeing. Like they were spinning on top of the world, everything at their feet, their hearts soaring into space. Troubles couldn’t touch them. This was _being._ Here with Yuuri, riding on the music. As Yuuri moved, Victor got a sense of blue streams of light surrounding him, trailing away like diffusing smoke. His heart ached with the beauty of it. If they wanted to, they could grind out a rhythm between them, easily, and stoke the desire he sensed they shared; but that wasn’t his inclination – or Yuuri’s, it seemed. It was too limiting, too earthy. They could reach for, and grab, higher things.

These songs were short, Victor observed when the one he’d chosen ended. “Yuuri,” he said, “what was that song you were singing at the Cloud café?” He thought for a moment. “ ‘They call me Mr. Fahrenheit, I’m trav’ling at the speed of light.’ ”

“Oh.” He raised his eyebrows, a delighted grin spreading across his face. “Nice one.” He bent over and quickly typed, then stood and took Victor’s hands, swaying softly with him to the introduction, fluttering glances up. Victor was happy to let him lead; and when the beat dropped like a racecar shooting away, he felt tossed along in its wake. Yuuri smiled as he danced and looked at him as if to say, _Isn’t this the most fun you’ve had in ages?_ This wasn’t the hesitant, self-conscious man Victor had been encountering from time to time during their sex; who’d blushed when they’d been naked together for the first time. He moved with a confident grace, laughing, singing pieces of the song. Victor felt lifted like a feather on a breeze, and sang along with what little he knew.

As the song drifted to a close, Freddie Mercury’s lilting vibrato fading away, Yuuri closed his eyes and sighed, pulling Victor in tight for a hug. “Thank you,” he said against his shirt.

Victor hugged him back and kissed his temple. “Anytime. It’s fun.” He reached up and caught the aircam, stashing it in his pocket for now.

“I want to listen to some more,” Yuuri said, pulling away to sit back down on the sofa with his laptop. “I suppose I ought to try to find some headphones at some point.”

“I can have a look in the workshop.” Victor took his own laptop out of its carrier bag and sat down next to him. “But in the meantime, why don’t we take turns choosing music to play?”

Yuuri said he liked that idea, and they spent some time browsing the Cloud while listening to their favorite songs. After a while, old habits took over, and Victor began to search scientific journal sites, as he used to do most days. Feeling curious, his gaze strayed to Yuuri’s laptop. The article he was reading was headed “The presynaptic active zone: molecules, plasticity and diseases” by Arban Bayar et al. So they were both grasping at that part of their identities they didn’t want to let go of. Maybe it was less painful just now because they were full of endorphins from dancing, he mused.

Eventually it began to feel to Victor like his concentration was warring with the lively music they were playing. “Do you mind if I put some classical music on in the background?” he said.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Yuri mumbled, his eyes glued to his screen as he stroked his chin contemplatively. Victor hadn’t seen that look about him, he was sure, since the last time they were in the office at MIT together.

“Boccherini?”

“You’re the expert,” Yuuri replied. “Go ahead.”

Victor settled back and continued with his own article. But his concentration strayed again. It was hard to prevent it, with Yuuri sitting next to him. The depth of his feelings for this man; his hunger for his body, for that physical connection…it hadn’t been like that with Mikhail, years back. That was the only other time he’d tried living with someone, and it hadn’t lasted long. Maybe the main attraction had simply been that they were fellow countrymen in New York. Afterward, he’d decided upon reflection that it had been too soon in their relationship, and he’d been too young. He hadn’t been sure what to expect or how to cope, and perhaps had taken some things for granted. They both worked long hours. Mikhail was absent for stretches at a time as well; he was a ballet dancer and trained and toured with his troupe. Eventually it felt like they were nothing more than roommates who saw each other occasionally and slept in the same bed. Mikhail had finally acknowledged the elephant in the room one day and said he thought it would be best to end the arrangement. There hadn’t been anyone else, he’d insisted – he’d thought he loved Victor; but unfortunately things hadn’t worked out the way he’d hoped.

Victor had thought he loved Mikhail too, at first; but he’d questioned it afterward. And now that he’d met Yuuri…well, comparing Mikhail to him was like holding a candle to the sun. Though they had never been the most compatible of partners from the start. He said Victor left his things lying around, and snored. As _if_. Well, Mikhail never wanted to do the dishes, and ate nothing but bland food, harbouring an unshakeable belief that anything more lively would somehow throw his system and body into an imbalance. They’d been more patient with each other in the beginning; but as their relationship had deteriorated, it had become difficult to avoid snapping at each other. He was glad Mikhail had ended it, because he wasn’t sure when he would have found the courage to do it himself; and he hoped he’d gone on to find someone who could care for him the way he needed them to.

Victor hadn’t come to the point where he’d felt ready to take that step with anyone else since, and hadn’t had the chance to think about it properly where Yuuri was concerned before they had ended up together here. Though he should have, really. From the start. He’d known he wanted to be with this man and try to make it work; and that meant, all being well, getting to this stage eventually. It was just that he hadn’t expected Yuuri to disappear, and then for them both to be on the run. But…he _wanted_ to be here with Yuuri; that was in no doubt. With all his heart. He didn’t want to be apart from him again like that. The thought was…unbearable.

He wanted to wrap his arms around him and kiss him. But they were both sitting here with laptops. That made things a little awkward.

Then Yuuri closed his laptop, stood, and put it down on the dining table. “I’m going to go do something with that food I brought back from the farm, before I get too lazy,” he said, heading into the kitchenette. “We’ve got some good ingredients now for mayonnaise. I’d love to find out how it tastes.”

“Homemade mayonnaise?” Victor said, curiosity following the stab of frustration he’d felt at losing his chance to…to do what, he wasn’t entirely sure. There didn’t seem to be a way of removing clunky antique tech from both their laps in one suave, seemingly nonchalant move, anyway. “I don’t think I’ve had that since I was a boy.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, then.” He searched for ingredients in the fridge and in a cupboard. “I’ll make enough to last us both for the week. Well, depending on how often we use it.”

Victor’s gaze dropped back down to “Identification of genes regulating GABAergic interneuron maturation” by Keita Fukumoto et al. as Yuuri worked over by the counter. But the words started to blur into each other. He watched Yuuri take a spoon, pour some oil from a glass bottle onto it, and take a tentative taste; pausing for thought, licking his lips, then raising an eyebrow briefly with a little “mmm” and a nod. The sharp, clean aroma of limes drifted across the room next as Yuuri sliced one and pushed and squeezed it over a glass juicer. Victor decided it was all much more interesting than genes and neurons just now.     

“Would you believe they have their own olive grove here?” Yuuri said, noticing Victor’s interest and pulling out a whisk and a bowl. “They actually make their own cold-pressed olive oil. It’s amazing. Do you want to come try some? I was afraid it might be too peppery to make a nice mayonnaise, but it’s got a great smooth flavor.”

Victor put his laptop down, the Boccherini still playing, and joined him at the counter. Yuuri poured him a small spoonful of olive oil and he tasted it. “That _is_ amazing,” he said. “We should get some balsamic vinegar and mix the two together. It’s great for dipping bread into.” Then he caught himself. “Or…what’s the paleo equivalent of bread? Is there one?”

Yuuri laughed. “That’s one of the strangest questions I’ve ever been asked. But I’d eat some bread with this oil as a treat.” He took a couple of eggs out of a box, cracked them and dropped the yolks into a bowl, disposing of the whites in the sink and putting the shells in the compost bin. “These eggs were laid this morning, isn’t that flink? But what I _really_ want to try is this.” He picked up a large glass jar and unscrewed the lid. “Unpasteurized honey. There are beekeepers here. I’ve been looking forward to trying this. Pasteurization takes all the flavor out of food.” He rinsed the spoons they’d used for the olive oil and took one, giving the other to Victor, then sniffed the jar. “Wow.” Victor watched him dip his spoon in the viscous amber-colored liquid, twirl it around, and take a taste. His eyelids closed and his lips twitched as he moaned, savoring it. “This is incredible. You have to try it.”

Victor stared, deciding he was hungry for something else. But he obliged, dipping his spoon in and guiding it to his mouth. “Wow,” he agreed. It was easily the best honey he’d ever tasted. He would happily have this slathered on toast, or in his porridge, or…or… _oh bozhe_ , what an idea. No, he couldn’t do _that._ But just the thought of it…He told himself to behave. Yuuri was enjoying this. “Do you mind if I watch?”

“Course not.” Yuuri gave him a running commentary on everything he was doing, which mainly involved stirring salt and mustard into the egg yolks, then whisking them with the olive oil until it emulsified. Halfway through, he added the lime juice and some spoonfuls of honey, then the remaining oil. “That should do it,” he said. He tapped most of the clinging mayonnaise into the bowl from the whisk, then licked the side of it experimentally, a look of rapture crossing his face. He started to make a comment, no doubt about how delicious it was, and happened to look up at Victor, whose jaw had dropped. He really couldn’t help it. God, if he did that again…

Yuuri hooded his eyes, and Victor could swear he saw a secret smile tilt the corner of his mouth. He took another slow lick of the whisk, closing his eyes, making a soft prolonged moan. Then he gathered some mayonnaise from the bottom of the whisk with his little finger and gave it a slow suck, slanting a sultry look at Victor as he pulled it out of his mouth and placed the whisk on the chopping board. “Perfect,” he sighed.

Victor placed a palm on Yuuri’s cheek, looking at him in amazement, heat rushing to pool in his groin. The impish expression on Yuuri’s face had quickly disappeared at the touch. He closed his eyes and leaned into it with a soft shuddering sigh, then met his gaze with a mixture of love and longing in his eyes. Victor swooped down for a hard kiss, Yuuri eagerly meeting him, arms wrapping around his shoulders. Tongues tangled – Yuuri tasted of sweet honey and the tang of the olive oil – and hands roamed, caressing backs and waists and hips, cheeks and necks. Soon they were both making needy noises, breaking off each kiss with a gasp before quickly searching out the next one. Victor was on the verge of taking up the idea he’d abandoned minutes before. Then Yuuri thrust up against him, and he was no longer in any doubt.

“Those things you do with your mouth – they drive me crazy,” Victor murmured as he began to unbutton Yuuri’s shirt. “The cooking. The…the licking. Jesus.”

“I can do other things with my mouth,” Yuuri said in a breathy voice, reaching for the top of Victor’s shirt.

“Oh, I know,” Victor said with a smile, stilling Yuuri’s hand with his own and noting his look of confusion. “And believe me, I’ll be happy for you to show me more of them. But it’s my turn first.” He took Yuuri’s lips in a brief kiss. “Trust me,” he whispered.

Yuuri nodded, though the confused expression lingered as Victor continued to unbutton the white shirt, meeting his eyes frequently with warmth and reassurance, and a little smile that said, _You’ll like this._ Once he got to the last button, he pulled the shirt to either side and ran his hands up Yuuri’s abdomen and chest, leaning in for a lingering kiss. Then he pulled away to grab the jar of honey and a nearby spoon. Yuuri’s eyes flew open wide, and he gasped. Victor gave him time to object, if that was what he wanted to do, though he was pleased to find he just stayed still and watched in astonishment as the spoon plowed deep into the honey. It was a good-sized dessert spoon, and when Victor lifted it high, it drizzled a syrupy trail down Yuuri’s chest. Yuuri took in a deep breath, staring as it landed on his skin as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Victor put the jar and spoon back on the counter, then met Yuuri’s eyes, giving him that little smile again, and reached under his shirt on either shoulder to tug it down and out of the way so that it clung to his arms but hung open from his abdomen. He could see Yuuri’s chest rising and falling. Surprise and anticipation. He _wanted_ this, but wasn’t sure what to expect. How delicious. He’d have his curiosity satisfied soon enough.      

Victor leaned down and stretched his tongue out to take a lick of the honey on Yuuri’s collarbone, moaning like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, darting a glance up while he ran his hands over the silky skin of Yuuri’s ribcage and waist. The result was just what he’d been hoping for. Yuuri breathed out tremulously, and his fingers gripped the countertop behind him. He seemed to be trying to speak, but no words came out.

“ _Vkusno,_ ” Victor whispered, his lips hovering over Yuuri’s skin. He licked them slowly, provocatively, then ran his tongue across more of Yuuri’s warm honeyed chest, sighing and moaning softly as he found a nipple. He flicked it with the tip of his tongue, then pressed his lips to it and gave it a suck. A shiver passed through Yuuri, and when he looked up, he saw him staring back with shock and lust crossing his face in turns. _[You taste amazing,]_ he sent, but all he received in return was red heat. It was enough, however, to make him consider abandoning what he was doing, scooping Yuuri up in his arms, and depositing him on the bed as quickly as possible. But then he’d lose this wonderful opportunity to do something fun and different. He’d never thought to try it with anyone else before.

He explored the map of Yuuri’s abdomen, where the honey had dripped and run, with tongue and lips and gentle brushes of teeth, making throaty noises to express his enjoyment as he went. The sweet fruity taste on Yuuri’s lovely skin really was a feast for the senses. He was on his knees now, circling Yuuri’s belly button with the tip of his tongue, gripping his hips. Looking up, he saw Yuuri’s head thrown back, his chest heaving, exposing a gorgeous curve of skin and muscle. Victor ached to stand up and run his mouth along it until he drove Yuuri wild – but this would be better. Leaving one hand on Yuuri’s hip, the other ghosted over the bulge in his front, then unbuckled his belt and began to undo the button at the waist. This was always the bit he looked forward to and loved unabashedly; it was like unwrapping a present. He thought he might be just as turned on as Yuuri was as he began to pull the zip down slowly, giving him a heated look. Yuuri himself had been at a loss for anything to say the whole time, his breaths and eyes doing the talking for him, his mounting desire clear whenever Victor reached out with ESP – which he’d had to stop doing, before he came undone himself.

“I can’t wait to taste the rest of you, _Zvezda moya_ ,” he murmured, palming Yuuri’s erection and being rewarded with a gasp and a jerk of his hips. He hooked his fingers around the waist of his pants and boxers and pulled them slowly down to Yuuri’s ankles, enjoying the erotic view of his cock in front of him, standing invitingly from the dark brown curls at its base. Victor felt a pulse of heat in his abdomen. “I’m going to swallow you down, and I’m not going to stop until you’re coming hard.” He’d gotten the feeling that Yuuri might like hearing this, and oh, his reaction was beautiful. The slack-jawed amazement still, his fingers tightening on the counter, his cock twitching. “When you do,” he added, “I want to taste you properly. Every last drop.”

“Fuck,” Yuuri choked out, squeezing his eyes shut.

Victor smiled and reached for the jar and the spoon, which he buried in the honey again, then held against Yuuri’s navel so that the sticky liquid coated him there and ran down. More soft curses filled Victor’s ears as he moved the spoon above Yuuri’s cock, coating the top of that too; then he replaced the honey and the spoon on the counter and stared at his handiwork. It was utterly lewd, but all the more tantalizing because of it. He wrapped a hand around the shaft of Yuuri’s cock and began to stroke it while he darted the tip of his tongue around the base, lapping at honey on skin and hair, drinking in Yuuri’s moans. He switched to the other side, licking the honey there, then trailed his tongue down the inside of Yuuri’s thigh. Up the other one. The only thing he never liked much about doing this was having to be down here while the other person was up there. He wanted to see Yuuri’s face; for them to be able to exchange words of love while looking into each other’s eyes. Out of curiosity, he reached out with ESP, wondering how Yuuri was feeling – and was answered with flaming urgency shooting to his core.

 _Iisus Khristos._ Victor’s hand around Yuuri’s shaft tightened, while he palmed himself and bit his lip, a groan spilling from him.

“Victor, please…” Yuuri breathed. “I need you to…”

Victor quickly reached around with both hands to grab Yuuri’s ass and swallowed him down completely. Yuuri cried out and his knees buckled as he twined his hands in Victor’s hair. There would be no more sensual build-up of desire, no more gentle exploring or drinking honey in secret places where it had pooled. Nothing but a hard drive to an explosive climax. He bobbed his head mercilessly, using all the skill he possessed to push Yuuri to the edge, sucking and swirling his tongue around his cock. The fingers in his hair flexed. Yuuri’s thighs tensed. His hips made little thrusting movements, though he was clearly holding back.

“Come on, sweetheart, fuck into me,” he pulled away to say, looking up. “I can take it. Do what you feel you need to, baby.” As disconnected as his logical brain was at the moment, some part of him knew that Yuuri would never knowingly hurt him, and that he was not the sort of person to want rough sex anyway. He took him back in his mouth, resuming his quick rhythm. This time he felt Yuuri meeting it, and he kneaded his ass and hummed in approval.

Yuuri was going to pieces, fingers clutching his hair now, though not painfully; hips pumping to match Victor’s strokes; curses falling freely from his lips. It was amazing to experience, and deeply erotic. Victor made himself concentrate enough to continue until Yuuri gave one last cry, and then he was swallowing salty liquid at the back of his throat. He helped Yuuri ride through it, feeling his body shake and then still, his panting breaths spilling into the room. Boccherini was still playing softly in the background.

Victor wiped his mouth against his shirt sleeve and stood. Yuuri was half-slumped over the counter, his forehead beaded with sweat. Those wondering brown eyes searched his. And then he was hugging him, arms circling around his shoulders. “That was…that was…oh my god, Victor.”

He felt a thrill shoot through him, though Yuuri had already shown him how much he had liked it. “Yuuri…my love,” he said against his hair, placing a kiss there. “I’d do that for you again and again. Would you like to go have a shower together?”

There was a sudden flash of disappointment in Yuuri’s eyes. “But what about you?”

Victor smiled and stroked his cheek. “There’s no obligation. I enjoyed that, too.”

“I want to,” Yuuri said in a low voice, his eyelids lowering seductively. But then the confidence fled as quickly as it had appeared. “I doubt I’d be as good at it as you…” He pulled his boxers and pants back up, buckling his belt, then shrugged his shirt off the rest of the way and let it drop to the floor. “…but I’d like to try.”

Well, who could reject such an enticing offer? Victor’s cock was straining in his pants, and Yuuri wanted to do to him what he’d done to that whisk. No bribe was big enough to persuade him to refuse.

And Yuuri did more than _try._ He undressed him with deft fingers and poured the honey with the most lascivious grin, then proceeded to lick and taste in that way Victor had _dreamed_ of for months while he’d watched him eat his favorite foods. Standing up to find his lips for sweet kisses. Sweeping back down over bare expanses of skin. Yuuri’s touch on his cock was endearingly gentle, but at the same time, the things he could do with his mouth…As Victor cradled the back of his head, he was suffused with pleasure, Yuuri’s moans of enjoyment feeding a flame that burned hot and bright all too quickly. He really wanted it to last. But there was only so much his body could take; and he called out Yuuri’s name as he was wracked by the most delicious spasms. The look of delighted satisfaction on Yuuri’s face, as he’d come up for a tender kiss, had been the icing on the cake…

…or, rather, the honey. The sticky stuff clung to them, their clothes, the kitchen. Resolving to clean things later, they had a long shower together, full of slow touches and caresses that were warm and affectionate, even playful, now that the sharp edge of their need had been eased. Afterward, they both dressed in sweatpants and T-shirts and tangled up together on the sofa, the notes of Boccherini still drifting on the air, neither of them having felt inclined to switch off the gently lilting music. Victor placed kisses on Yuuri’s damp hair, his temple, his forehead, deciding if he never moved from this spot again, he’d be happy.

“Every time I listen to this composer from now on, I’m going to remember tonight,” Yuuri said with a smile, snuggling against Victor’s neck, where he gave him a light lingering kiss. Then he sighed his name.

Victor was struck by a sudden idea. “Yuuri, have you ever thought of using nicknames?”

“Hmm?” He considered. “Well, you’re my Velvet.”

“And you’re my Zvezda. And lots of other things. But…I mean using our given names.”

Yuuri looked up at him. “I’ve never had a nickname.”

“Really?”

“Well, sometimes my parents called me Yuuri-chan when I was little, but that doesn’t really count, and it’s for children. I…I wouldn’t like that.”

“How about something Russian?”

Yuuri began to run his fingers idly over Victor’s shirt. “Like – ?”

“Russians have lots of variations of names. Some of them are short and friendly, and some are very intimate. For Yuuri, you could have Yura, Yurchik, Yurachka, Yuranya…”

“I like the sound of the last one. It kind of slips off the tongue.”

 He ran a thumb along Yuuri’s bottom lip. “Like a spoonful of honey.” Yuuri’s cheeks went that delightful pink shade. “That’s the intimate form of your name. I like it, if you do.”

“We _are_ intimate, so…”

Victor chuckled. “I’d say so. It just means I’d probably reserve it for here in the house, just between the two of us.”

 Yuuri practiced saying it a couple of times. “Is there a form like that for your name, too?”

Victor paused. “Vitenka.”

“Oh. That’s…pretty.” He echoed it.

“I like how you say it.” It sent a shiver through him, hearing it in Yuuri’s voice. “In fact, you can say it as many times as you want. Unless I’m doing this.” And he found Yuuri’s lips and met them softly.

***

 _Yuranya. Vitenka._ He should’ve suggested it before, he decided as he listened to the words in his head while lying in bed next to Yuuri after they had both slid under the sheets. It wasn’t something he tended to think about with non-Russians, and there were so many other fun and endearing pet names to use besides. But…these would be special. Just for them. English, for some reason, was lacking in nicknames that expressed the feelings in relationships without sounding trite or silly.

He was about to mention it when Yuuri sat up next to him with a little chuckle and pulled his T-shirt on.

“What is it?”

“It’s OK; it’s just Bubbles. They’re saying hi. I’ll sit up with them for a while, but it’s chilly in here. Though…I don’t want to keep you awake. I can go up to the loft – ”

“No, you don’t need to do that. It’s fine.” Victor blinked up at him. He wondered what the person was like, for Yuuri to have chosen that name for them.

“OK,” Yuuri said with a smile, leaning down and giving him a quick kiss. Victor closed his eyes and felt him settle so that he was propped against his pillow and the headboard. Comfortable and warm, his thoughts wandered and drifted.

Then something was pulling at the edge of his consciousness. He’d dozed off, he thought. But Yuuri hadn’t. He was tensing next to him, and Victor could hear his breaths. Opening his eyes, he saw Yuuri staring into nothingness ahead of him, sweat glistening on his forehead, alarm painted on every feature. Was he hurt? Sick? Being attacked?

“Yuuri – ” he began, sitting up, but Yuuri raised a hand. Victor was reminded of that day in the office at MIT when he’d first seen Yuuri working with one of these presences. But something was clearly wrong this time.

“It’s Bubbles,” Yuuri said in a choked voice as he continued to stare into space. “Someone’s after them, Victor.”

A bolt of fear shot down Victor’s spine. Experiencing this secondhand as he was, he had little understanding of what was happening, but he knew that someone’s life might be in danger. “Can I help?” he offered, just to express the wish that he could, because he had no idea what, if anything, was in his power to do.

“I don’t know. Can you hear them? Well, not hear, but – ”

“I know what you mean. But no, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Yuuri continued in a quiet voice, though he was clutching at the sheets, “I told them to disable the intruder’s gun, but I don’t think they have one, or they haven’t gotten it out. But they’ve got some other weapon…a knife, I think.”

“Shit,” Victor breathed. He tried reaching his mind out to join Yuuri’s connection with this person, but nothing seemed to work.

Tears were rolling down Yuuri’s cheeks now. “Why you?” he whispered in a wavering voice. “Of all people…”

Victor didn’t think he’d ever felt so helpless in his life. No…that wasn’t true. This was maybe as bad as Anna having one of her episodes. Jesus.

The spells of silence between Yuuri’s comments felt ominous, too. Victor could see that he was fighting to maintain his connection, to send the person information that might help. Even the instinct to gather him into his arms – just to touch him and let him know he was there for him – felt wrong. It could be enough of a distraction to cause Yuuri to lose his concentration, he realized.     

A tear dripped from Yuuri’s cheek. “I don’t know who’s there, or why, but…they can’t…get away.” He leaned forward and cried, “Come _on_ , you can do this – run, goddamn it, _run_!”

Victor’s eyes were open, but he was living a nightmare. Yuuri was, too, it seemed, lost in some other world with this person he wanted desperately to protect. It was unconscionable to simply sit here and do nothing. Even if he couldn’t help the other person, Victor decided he would try to support Yuuri, that it was worth taking the risk. Slowly and quietly, he closed his hand over Yuuri’s, which was still clutching the bedsheet. As Yuuri continued to stare ahead, he dropped the sheet and grabbed Victor’s hand, squeezing it. Victor sent him feelings of calm and warmth, though he wasn’t sure how well it was working, because he didn’t really feel that way himself.

“No,” Yuuri muttered. And again in a louder voice that finished on a sob. Finally he yelled it, yanking his hand out of Victor’s and making fists in his lap. His frame shook as tears spilled freely now, and then he buried his face in his hands, moaning “no” over and over.

Watching his love suffer like this cut Victor to his heart. “Oh Yuuri,” he said softly, laying a hand on his back.

“They’re gone,” came Yuuri’s muffled voice through his hands. “I…I think…Bubbles is dead.” More sobs.

Gently, Victor circled an arm around his shoulders and cupped the back of his head, nuzzling into his hair. “Do you have any idea what happened?” he asked after a moment. Yuuri’s answer chilled his blood.

“The ring,” he bit out. “They saw the ring. Just before…it happened.”

 _“Gospodi,”_ Victor breathed.

“The nicest…sweetest…” He sniffled. “They were the first presence who taught me a song. I loved that song.”

And the memory of it would be spoiled now by this, Victor thought. He held Yuuri through the tears.    

Eventually Yuuri sat up and looked at him, wiping at his red eyes with a shaking hand. “We need to be able to stop this,” he said firmly.

“I know.”

“It keeps happening, and what am I doing? Running away. Sitting here and watching it happen. Completely fucking _helpless._ We need people to know about this. About what they’re up to.”

Victor wanted nothing less himself. But how? “We’ll find a way. I promise.” Whether or not he could keep it remained to be seen, but it felt good to say so. “We have to look out for ourselves too, though. We can’t attract attention. We’ll be no use to anyone if they catch us.”

“I hate it,” Yuuri said venomously, looking down.

“I do, too.” _And I wore that same ring. For years. It’s still in my backpack. What does that make me? Implicitly part of this?_ He sighed and looked down as well, the familiar feeling of horrified wonder creeping back to haunt him for deeds that had been well meant but foolishly misguided. This was never who he wanted to be or what he wanted to achieve.

_We’ll tell people. And I’ll fix what I’ve done. Somehow._

Sharing their warmth and their touch couldn’t make everything right, but it chased the clouds away long enough for them to eventually drift into a fitful sleep.           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“I Want You”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQt6jIKNwgU) by Savage Garden
> 
> In case you missed it the first time, in Chapter 49, here you go! – [“Don’t Stop Me Now”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM) by Queen
> 
> _And, really worth a try!…_
> 
> Homemade mayonnaise
> 
>  _Ingredients_  
>  1/8 tsp salt  
> 1 tsp Dijon mustard  
> 2 large egg yolks  
> Juice of ½ lime  
> 1 tbsp honey (to taste)  
> 1 cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
> 
>  _Instructions_  
>  Whisk together the salt, mustard and egg yolks in a medium bowl. Begin pouring in the olive oil in a continuous thin line, or just a little at a time, continually whisking. (Do not pour too much oil too fast, or the mixture will not emulsify/thicken.) When half the oil has been poured, add the lime juice and honey to taste, whisk until smooth and blended, then gradually add the remaining oil, continually whisking.
> 
> n.b. This mayonnaise will not be as thick as store-bought, but will thicken in the fridge. Also, experiment with different kinds of olive oil and honey (I use unpasteurized) for different flavors. I prefer a mild Kalamata, rather than a peppery, oil.
> 
>  _variation:_ Add half a garlic clove (pounded together with the salt using a mortar and pestle) and omit the honey to make aioli – delicious as a dip.


	56. Chapter 56

It was a quiet morning. Neither of them felt like eating breakfast. Yuuri made a mug of peppermint tea while Victor filled the cafetiere. It felt to him as if the very bricks of the house and the limbs of the trees outside had come to a still, solemnly respectful hush.

“I don’t even know who they were,” Yuuri said, dropping the teabag into the compost bin absently. “I never know who any of them are. I thought of Bubbles as an older lady – you know, someone who’s past caring much about what other people think, and found what makes them happy.” He swallowed. “Though it could’ve been anyone. I don’t know how accurate my guesses are. I’m sure someone will…will miss her, though. Or him.” Picking up his mug, he added, “I’d been hoping I could meet them one day.” Then he walked to the door and went out.

Victor followed, holding his coffee. They were dressed in casual clothes for the house-building site. It wasn’t what he felt like doing, but maybe it would take their minds off last night. He still wasn’t sure how he could help Yuuri. He’d felt as if he’d joined a new part of his world when he’d developed ESP, something he’d previously had no understanding of. But this ability Yuuri had to communicate with so many other people – that was beyond Victor’s grasp, though he was gratified to be able to do it between the two of them. How did you mourn the death of someone who had been a close friend, yet at the same time whose most basic personal details had been a mystery to you? It wasn’t even the first time this had happened for Yuuri. Victor wondered about the others. How he must have sat alone, struggling in vain to help one of his “presences” escape the threat that stalked them, and then shedding tears in the dark.

He decided on something he could do, even if it wasn’t much. Yuuri walked to the back of the house, stopping under the branches of the laurel tree there and staring into the scrubby woodland beyond. Victor joined him, slipping an arm around his waist and kissing the top of his head. Yuuri leaned into it, breathing out. This was what he had to offer, even if it was only small. Just the knowledge that Yuuri wasn’t alone with this anymore.

“I’m so sorry, _solnyshko._ ”

“That’s a nice word,” Yuuri said quietly. “Another Russian pet name?”

“It means ‘little sun.’ Though I don’t suppose it’s very different from _Zvezda moya_. Bright and beautiful. My Yuranya.”

Yuuri looked up at him. Then tilted his head and found his lips. A tingle shivered through Victor. “You’re right…” Yuuri mumbled. “…Russians do have a way with names.” 

Victor suddenly became aware of the sensation of being watched, and looked around, spotting a woman near the neighboring house kneeling to trim some sprigs off a rosemary bush with a pair of scissors. It was Sheila; he remembered being introduced to her briefly by Carla on the day they had arrived. When she saw him looking at her, she stood and came over. She was wearing jeans and an athletic jacket, as before.

“Morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” Victor replied pleasantly, taking a sip of his coffee. “Sheila, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Alex and Will?” Victor nodded. “So how have you both been settling in?”

They made small talk while Yuuri sipped his tea quietly. _[Are you OK?]_ Victor eventually sent while Sheila talked about the herbs and vegetables she and Sumayya had planted in their garden.

 _[No,]_ came the response, though Yuuri just looked down into his tea. _[But you can keep talking to her. You’re good at that.]_

It was a simple request with no hint of jealousy; Yuuri was glad that one of them, at least, would be able to deal with the situation. Victor couldn’t help but marvel at the image he received from Yuuri of himself flashing a winning smile at Sheila while confidently expounding upon something. He was like some silver-tongued salesman or performer. Was this really how Yuuri saw him in social situations?

“…mind me asking?” Sheila finished, and Victor realized he’d lost track of the conversation. “It just sounded like one of you was real upset. I came out here for a few minutes to have a drink before bed and look at the moon, and I heard – ”

“I get nightmares,” Yuuri answered quickly. “I’m sorry, I…it was a bad one. It doesn’t happen very often, though.”

“Sounds awful.” A voice called her name from the door of her house, and Victor saw Sumayya peer around. She grinned politely when she spotted them, then withdrew. “Looks like we’re gonna have to head off soon. Say…I guess you jacks are partners? I don’t mean to pry…”

Victor looked at Yuuri, who gave him a small smile back. _[She saw us kissing,]_ Yuuri sent.

“Yes,” Victor answered, wondering what she would make of that. It was rare nowadays for anyone to harbor a prejudice against same-sex couples, but he supposed it still happened. People could be prejudiced about anything.

“I thought so,” Sheila said with a glimmer in her blue eyes. “You make the cutest couple. Sumayya’s my partner, too; we’ve been together for twelve years. That makes us a rainbow fam then, the four of us. We should have a drink together sometime.”

“We absolutely should,” Victor answered. He heard Summaya call her name again loudly from the house.

“I’ve gotta go. Thanks for the talk – see you later. Bye, Will.”

They said goodbye, then went back inside. “That’s cheered me up a little,” Victor said, putting his mug in the sink. “She seems nice.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri said noncommittally, copying him. Then he leaned back against the counter and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yuuri…do you want me to call Carla and tell her you’re feeling sick, so you can spend the day here?”

Yuuri looked at the floor. “No, that’d make it worse. I just need to keep busy, I think. I’ll end up putting it to the back of my mind eventually, like the last time.”

“When was that?”      

“At the last commune.”

Victor blew out a breath. “By yourself, in that tin hut?”

Yuuri nodded. “But however bad it is for me, it’s worse for the people on the receiving end, wouldn’t you agree?” Before Victor could answer, he picked up his backpack and looked at him. “We’ve got a house to help build.”

***

They helped that morning, and most mornings over the next two weeks. Making mud bricks with wooden frames. Building them into walls using different styles and materials. Compacting, smoothing, and finishing floors. They worked on several houses, depending on the day and what was needed. Yuuri had a little more knowledge of what he was doing from his time at the other commune, but Victor followed his lead, and many of the tasks consisted of physical labor that needed no particular skill. It was a good workout, though not for his brain, Victor decided; and whether it constituted a way of keeping his hand in his former life, or a mild form of torture for having lost it and not wanting to let go, he still read journal sites most days, and would find himself considering potential ideas for research before catching himself and dismissing them. Though not before making a note of them on his tablet.

Some days one or the other of them, though usually both, were asked by Carla to help out at the farm. Lugging hay around fields put a good burn through his muscles; and he discovered he liked working with horses, once he got over the strangeness of standing next to the tall, proud animals and touching their warm sleek bodies, brushing their coarse manes. He and Yuuri were rewarded for their efforts with an introductory riding lesson with Carla one day. They’d smiled and laughed as they’d traveled through bleakly beautiful countryside – and been surprisingly sore in delicate places afterward. Other people made it look so easy.

Most of his afternoons were spent at the workshop, or at houses or other establishments where people needed tech support. It was handy for learning his way around the commune and getting to know people, if only through making small talk while he poked inside machines and replaced parts or fought with antique software while making sure he didn’t trip over cables. He felt like Phichit Mark 2 at times. But there were more creative tasks to get stuck into as well. Some nascent ideas for modern gadgets were knocking around his brain, if he could get the tech to develop them. In spare moments, he cobbled together tools and parts, and experimented with them.

When Yuuri mentioned to Carla one day that he liked to cook, and had been doing so at Children of Gaia, she enthusiastically enlisted his support in the dining hall; which meant that he spent fewer mornings house-building, and was sometimes at the hall in the afternoons as well, though he had also begun teaching some science lessons at the school as a sort of subject specialist, or at least that was how he described it. It had been the trend, ever since the chip had been invented – and even before, come to think of it – for children to spend more time at home, if someone was there to mind them, and watch lessons and interact with programs and teachers long-distance; but Yuuri had said the ethos at the commune’s school was while that kind of learning had advantages, it was missing a social element. Victor got the impression he enjoyed working with the kids, but was also reminded of what he’d said in the past about needing to prepare intensively so that he wasn’t anxious when delivering a lesson – even though in this case, the class teacher and assistants were on hand to help with the children. Having taught university courses himself, Victor thought he could understand. He did his best to help by searching the Cloud with Yuuri some evenings for fun science ideas for school, wondering what it would be like to be a child in one of his lessons, and thinking they were probably rather more entertaining than the ones he’d grown up with himself.

It wasn’t long before he got a glimpse to satisfy his curiosity. He and Yuuri had each borrowed bicycles from the warehouse, and he was cycling to a house across the commune with tech parts and tools in panniers; the weather here, as Christmas neared, was still warm by his standards, but there was a bite in the air, and the breeze had a way of feeling its fingers into the neck of his dragon-jacket. He was coasting down a path when he came by one of the clearings with benches and street lights, and noticed groups of children who looked about seven years old wandering around with tablets and digital pens. Slowing down, he caught sight of Yuuri at the far end of the area, talking to a woman next to him who appeared to be about ten years older, with a cluster of several children crowding around.

Victor came to a halt and propped his bike against a tree, standing to the side and watching with a grin. The children were looking down at the ground for the most part, hunting through patches of grass and scrub or at the bases of trees, some of them with magnifying glasses. He heard “Look over here,” “That’s _peak_ ,” and “Do _you_ know what it is?” The children near Yuuri were waving their tablets at him, making little bounces and seemingly all trying to get his attention at once. He appeared slightly flustered, though the woman next to him was talking to them as well, and looking at their tablets. Yuuri focused next on a little girl in a blue coat with long brown hair in pigtails; he knelt in front of her and pointed at her tablet while she spoke to him, the other children pressing around; and the flustered look reappeared as six small people vied for his attention. The woman again came in to try to help. But maybe flustered wasn’t the same as anxious, and Victor saw Yuuri stand back up and point and gesture. The children listened and then raced away in a group to an ocher-colored rock the size of a car, where they peered into the crannies underneath. Victor decided he’d never seen anything cuter in his life.

Yuuri spotted him just as a dopily fond smile crossed his face, and trotted over, his eyes sparkling. Victor was planning to apologize for interrupting his lesson, but Yuuri spoke first. “Hi,” he greeted him, everything about his expression saying _It’s a wonderful surprise to see you._ Victor’s heart fluttered. Somehow every day felt like falling in love with this man all over again.

“I was just passing by and was wondering what was going on. They’re keeping you busy. I hope I’m not in the way.”

“Never. They’re hunting for…um, for critters.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Critters?”

“Yeah, you know, they’re trying to find bugs and worms and animals and whatever lives around here, then taking notes to share with the class.”

“That’s the scientific term for them.”

“Absolutely.”

A boy with short copper-colored hair ran up to Yuuri with his hand outstretched. “Look what _I_ found,” he said. “What is it?”

Yuuri knelt and peered at the little green speck in his palm. “That’s what you’re supposed to find out for yourself,” he said. “And you’re not supposed to pick them up. Be careful with this one – if you make it mad or hurt it, it’ll give off a horrible smell.”

“Eeew.” The boy looked at it. Then he said, “Flink!” and ran away to join a group of children, pointing to his hand and repeating what Yuuri had just said.

“It’s a stink bug. I think,” Yuuri told Victor as he stood back up. “I didn’t know any of this stuff until last night.”

“It’s not neuroscience.”

“No. But…it’s OK. These kids can be kind of sweet, when they’re behaving.”

“You are the most beautiful man on earth,” Victor said, looking into those brown eyes and meaning every word. “I don’t think I’ve told you that yet today.”

Yuuri’s cheeks pinked, and he gave him a soft smile.

The scene lingered in Victor’s mind for the rest of the day. That night, he and Yuuri snuggled up on the sofa together, Yuuri’s back to his chest, while Victor wrapped an arm loosely around his waist. They both relaxed into each other’s warmth while they used their tablets, Yuuri to look up more teaching ideas and Victor to browse Cloud sites for modern tech that was affordable and which someone with a bank account, and thus access to digital currency, could buy for him with the promise of being repaid in cash. The house was beginning to feel more like a home, he thought. There was a fire crackling merrily in front of them, casting a sunset glow around the walls of the room. Yuuri had bought an ivory-colored fringed throw for the sofa from an artisan’s market stall. They’d also visited the lady who made the pottery and bought a vase to put on the mantelpiece, just to liven the room with some color. The place didn’t exactly feel lived-in yet, but it had a bit of character, Victor thought. He wasn’t sure he wanted to try much harder with it at the moment. It wasn’t like they were planning to stay here over the long term.

He couldn’t get over the touching sight of Yuuri with all those children, though. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected to witness while both of them were devoting their lives to academia. All right, he was only teaching a few lessons a few days a week. But still. He felt he had to say something.

“Yuuri…have you ever thought about having children one day?”

Yuuri’s head jerked up from his tablet, and he turned to look at him. “Uh…why are you asking?”

Victor put his own tablet down on the floor. “Sorry, I guess that was a little abrupt, wasn’t it?”

“A little?” Yuuri laughed.

“I just said _thought._ As in, considered. Seeing you with the children this morning just brought it to mind.”

Yuuri put his tablet on the wooden table at the side of the sofa and then turned back to meet his eyes again. “I…uh, never thought I’d be in a position to do that with someone else, so no, I never gave it much thought. Besides, I’m not sure how good a dad I’d be. I’d…probably just make a mess of things.”

“I don’t know why you’d say that. You were wonderful with those children today.”

Yuuri continued to stare at him as if taking in this new idea and reframing the two of them in its context, Victor in particular. He didn’t look displeased. “I’d have to give it some thought. What about you?”

“I never thought about it much before either. My career always came first. But…now?” He reflected on it for a moment. “It doesn’t seem so impossible. As long as they don’t inherit weird mind-reading powers or something. That could get very awkward at times, I imagine.” _And as long as we’re not on the run for the rest of our lives._ But that possibility, while always hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles, was not something he wanted to consider right now.

Yuuri snorted a laugh and shifted to drape an arm around his shoulders. “They could make a bad horror movie out of that, maybe. Nightmare.”

“No,” Victor said with a smile. “I think their dad would put them right. Their other dad. This one. You. _That_ could be confusing too, having two dads.”

“Other people manage.”

“I suppose so,” Victor said, giving Yuuri’s waist a squeeze.

“I think there’s one thing I’d want before we thought seriously about adding anyone else to our house, though,” Yuuri said softly, moving close. “A lot more time to do this.”

Then Victor felt his lips pressing against his own, and gathered him and held him tight, all thoughts of conversation forgotten.    

***

“I wish they’d stop using AI in place of real actors,” Yuuri commented as they walked home from the main lodge the following night, where they’d gone to watch a holographic science fiction film about people who crossed between dimensions, as they didn’t have the tech to project anything in their own house. Yuuri had quickly gotten used to living without a Friday – well, he supposed he’d done that at Gaia, though a hut wasn’t the same thing as an actual house or apartment; but he missed other things occasionally. Temperature controls. Cleaning robots. Though he supposed he and Victor were doing OK on that front so far, neither of them turning out to be obsessively tidy or inveterately slobby at least.

“It means they can make them look just how they want, though,” Victor answered.

“But the expressions aren’t right. There’s something…I don’t know, just _off_ about them. That’s before I even get started on the fake voices.”

“So what’s your idea for the non-human characters?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Make an animation instead of something that’s supposed to look a hundred percent realistic? Japan still does that. I’ve seen some fantastic animes.”

“Hm. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

They walked in easy silence, the white glow of the tall street lights illuminating the pale path. Then Victor said, “Carla was at the workshop today. I wanted to put this off for a while, after everything she did to help us settle in, but now seemed like a good time. Since she’d worked as a scientist at Stanford, I asked her if she had any overseas contacts or any way of possibly finding information about jobs in neuroscience that don’t require a chip.”

Yuuri felt a prickle of alarm and darted a look at him. “We can’t get her into trouble, Victor. The first thing the Institute will be looking for is anyone who wants information about that kind of thing.”

“I know,” Victor said quickly. “I think I’ve convinced her that it’s dangerous, and that we don’t want her to take risks on our behalf. She said she’ll try sending out some feelers that shouldn’t attract any unwanted attention.” He sighed. “I know we said our best hope might be to find work in another country. I think it’ll be difficult, though. Countries where people aren’t automatically expected to have chips tend to be poor and underdeveloped, usually without much of a presence on the Cloud. And governments can trace where communications and searches originate. None of us, not even Carla, can browse in any detail for the information we want, because they’ll be looking out for keywords.”

“Victor, I know all this. But…if we can, I still want to try. Don’t you?”

Victor was silent for a few minutes. Then he said, “Yes.”

“I mean, it’s nice here. It’s certainly better than living out of motels. We’ve been lucky in a lot of ways. I don’t mind the jobs I’m doing.”

“But not minding them isn’t the same as having a passion for them.”

Yuuri looked at him, grateful he understood. Then felt sad on his behalf because of course he did; it was how he felt, too. 

“I’ve thought about this for a while,” Victor went on, “and it might be an idea just to write to some universities and research institutions on spec via the postal service. But that’s patchy nowadays, and it could take weeks to get a response. Still, it might be our best bet.”

Yuuri nodded. “OK. Let’s do that.”

“Have you got a résumé?”

“On my tablet somewhere, though I’d better update it before I send it to you.”

He sat on the sofa and took his tablet out of his backpack when they got to the house, but the task took longer than he had anticipated. References would be a problem, because there wasn’t anyone it would be safe for a prospective employer to contact. But perhaps they were well enough known, especially Victor; and their published research could speak for itself. When he was finished, he sent his résumé to Victor, who was lying awake in bed with his tablet.

“Got it,” he called over. Then shortly afterward, “I should’ve thought to ask you when your birthday was. November the twenty-ninth – we missed it. Why didn’t you say?”

“We had more important things to think about at the time,” Yuuri answered, approaching the bed and pulling off his shirt. “I didn’t ask when yours was, either.”

“December the twenty-fifth.”

“Christmas Day?”

“Well, it is here. Christmas in Russia is on the seventh of January.”

“Oh. But it’s less than a week away.”

“We’ve had more important things to think about,” Victor said with a little smile.

***

A couple of days later, when Yuuri returned to the house in the evening, there was a parcel wrapped in silver paper on the kitchen table, gleaming by the light of the fire. Victor was cooking dinner, but came over to join Yuuri when he made a soft exclamation of surprise.

“What’s this doing here?”

“Happy late birthday.”

Yuuri shook his head in amazement and opened it, to discover a set of speakers. They looked old and clunky, but in good shape – the perfect vintage to be compatible with the laptops, as Victor would no doubt have checked. “These must’ve been expensive, even if they’re years old,” he said.

“Well, they’re as much a gift for me as they are for you, I suppose. We’ve got something nice to dance to together now.”

Victor was wearing a white apron with a strap around his neck, and which also tied at the back of his waist. Yuuri had never bothered with one, simply diving into his work in the kitchen and not caring whether his shirt got a little splattered. It would have been the cutest thing as it was, if Victor hadn’t also been standing there with a tomato-sauce-stained wooden spoon in his hand. The contrast between Dr. Victor Nikiforov the renowned neuroscientist, and the man in front of him now, could not have been more striking. There was even a small speck of sauce on his cheek. Yuuri hugged him tight, giving him time first to move the spoon out of the way.

“I love you,” he said, and kissed his neck.

Victor made an appreciative noise. “I’ll have to shower you with presents every day if they get this response,” he said with a laugh.

Later, Victor hooked the speakers up to Yuuri’s laptop and they danced to their favorite songs, this time with the notes ringing out clear, underscored by throbbing bass the way they were supposed to be. They exchanged smiles and sultry looks, dipping and spinning each other and swaying their hips. Eventually Victor paused the playlist they’d put together earlier and typed in a title, then looked over at Yuuri as the words drifted through the air on the gentle melody: “Oh my love, my darling, I’ve hungered for your touch a long, lonely time.” Yuuri gasped, remembrance sparking in his eyes.

“Tell me if you don’t want it,” Victor said, rejoining him. “I know it was…a difficult night the last time we danced to this. But I’d like to feel as though we were putting it right, in a way.”

A swell of emotion rose inside Yuuri. That last night in Boston, in Victor’s apartment. It felt so long ago. How few cares they’d had, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. Yuuri looked into those bright blue eyes and thought about how happy he was to be with this man here and now, after he’d believed they’d lost each other. He nodded.

Victor’s smile expressed a mixture of relief and pleasure. He held Yuuri’s gaze as they placed hands on each other’s backs and waists, moving slowly to the music. Yuuri felt like he was sinking down into something warm and wonderful, his heart brimming over. _[I love you so, so much.]_

_[You’re so special to me.]_

_[How did I get this lucky?]_

_[My love…my life.]_

Yuuri exhaled, on the verge of tears, and touched foreheads with Victor. They were barely moving now. He ghosted his fingertips down Victor’s cheek, then cupped it gently as he gave him a soft, almost reverential kiss, as if he were something rare and precious. Well…he was. Victor sighed against his lips and stroked his back, then brushed the bottom of his chin languorously and tipped it up. “Vitenka,” Yuuri whispered, then came back in for another kiss, this time licking into Victor’s mouth. He was distantly aware of the song ending, the final notes of the symphony fading away until there was nothing but the crackling of the fire and their breaths and the movements of mouths and lips and tongues.

“I want you,” Victor said against his temple as he ran a hand through the back of his hair.

A frisson passed through Yuuri from head to toe. “Then take me,” he breathed, tilting his head back to look at Victor with hooded eyes.

Victor flashed him a sudden devilish grin and swept him up so that he was carrying him bridal style. Yuuri let out a laugh, then looped his arms around his neck and closed his eyes and kissed him, feeling himself traveling until he was deposited gently on the bed. Victor was on all fours over him in an instant, his bangs hanging down, eyes gleaming. Yuuri reached up to unbutton his shirt, his breaths quickening, and Victor did the same.

Yuuri had been trying to build his confidence every time they made love. Victor often guided them, but he no longer felt self-conscious about being naked around him, having been convinced by now that there was nothing to be ashamed of. He still didn’t have much experience, but he had some, which meant he knew more about what he and Victor both liked, and what they might choose to do together depending on their mood. Part of him was always afraid he would get something terribly wrong, and an intimate and trusting encounter would turn into the most awful embarrassing moment of his life. But he just kept kicking it away, giving himself over to the moment, and Victor’s loving touch.

Like now. Even though – or maybe _because_ – he’d taken control on occasion, he felt comfortable with letting Victor do it tonight, luxuriating in the care he took as he covered his body with caresses and kisses. Then it was Yuuri’s turn to slowly finish undressing him and do the same, though he struggled as usual to believe he had this privilege because Victor had chosen _him._ And when Victor pushed into him and claimed him, he was lifted on waves of warm sensation, pulling his legs back as far as he could, digging his heels into the small of Victor’s back, urging him deeper, deeper, as if they could fuse together to a bright, shining point. _Take me, love me, be part of me._ He wasn’t aware of sending the thoughts, but felt a firm, throbbing _Yes_ followed by what always lay underneath the pet names Victor would murmur and whisper into his skin – a tender promise to love and take care of him. They moved as one, building the waves higher and higher until they crashed together, clinging tight and bucking and crying out against each other.           

The silence as they lay entwined afterward reminded Yuuri of lying outside in the still of the night during a meteor shower, watching the impossibly quick streaks dart across the sky, bright and beautiful and ephemeral. _You call me “sun” and “star,” but you’re the shining one,_ Yuuri thought. White and dazzling. A marvel.

And trapped here in this life, away from everything he could be accomplishing. Yuuri was inclined at first to blame himself for this, but he knew that he was not responsible for what the Institute was doing, or the blocking chip that prevented ESP as well as psychosis. It might not be his fault, but he longed to help Victor make his life what he truly wanted it to be, and to undo what he saw as his mistakes. There had to be some way of taking positive steps toward that, rather than running. But, given what they were up against…what? How?

“What are you thinking, my love?” Victor asked, kissing his hair. It was strangely comforting to know that while they shared so much, they didn’t have automatic access to each other’s thoughts. He doubted his own would be very comforting to Victor just now.

“I’m thinking this has been my best birthday ever,” he answered, snuggling against him, “and it doesn’t matter if it’s late.”

Victor chuckled. “I’m glad.”

After a pause, Yuuri asked, “What are _you_ thinking?”

“Oh…just that I hope Sheila hasn’t been standing in her backyard again. We might have to think about soundproofing this house, you know, especially if we want to do this again sometime.”

Yuuri snickered and kissed his chest.

***

The shirt that Yuuri gave Victor for his birthday felt uninspired by comparison. He’d only had a few days to think of an idea, and had snuck off to Sonora when he persuaded his supervisor at the dining hall to give him the afternoon off, but as a present it seemed about as dull to him as a tie or a pair of socks. Still, when he saw it in the store window, he imagined Victor wearing it, and knew it would be stunning on him: light gray shimmering silk with a red, white and gold dragon painted down the right breast.

“Yuuri, I love it!” he exclaimed when he opened it Christmas morning. Yuuri had gotten out of bed first, for once, and handed the parcel to Victor, along with a mug of coffee just how he liked it, and a plate of blinis with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and beetroot relish. He’d slipped a question into a conversation about food several days prior, asking him what he’d liked to eat for breakfast when he was in Russia, and then had found some recipes on the Cloud. It was heaven to be able to look things up like that again.

“It’s something you’d wear, is it?” Yuuri said, suddenly thinking what a niff question it was.

“Of course,” Victor answered, holding the shirt up and running a hand admiringly over it. “It’s beautiful. I didn’t expect you to do anything like this. And breakfast too! You’re spoiling me.”

“It’s your birthday,” Yuuri laughed. “If I can’t spoil you today, when can I?”

“Did you cook anything for yourself?”

Yuuri shook his head. “These are for you. You said you liked them.”

Victor shot him a mock-disapproving look. “You should try them sometime as a treat.” He folded the shirt and put it down, then picked up a blini that Yuuri had covered with cream cheese and salmon, and bit in, closing his eyes and sighing; and Yuuri was suddenly struck by how sensual it really was to watch someone do that, as Victor had told him on numerous occasions. “These are divine. Thank you.”

“I guess we’re going to be pretty well fed today. Do you still want to go to the dining hall for Christmas lunch?”

“Sure. Don’t you?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Me and crowds. I still don’t know that many people here. Well, it’s mostly kids that I know.”

“They’ll be asking you to supervise games with them.”

“Oh no. I’m off duty today.”

“No jobs to go do. A whole day to ourselves – whatever shall we do?” Victor said, giving him a smirk.

“I can think of a few things,” Yuuri said quietly in his ear.

“Hm. I won’t get to the end of this delicious breakfast at this rate. You’re too distracting.”

 _“Me?”_ Yuuri laughed. “OK. I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. And I’d love to see how that shirt looks on you.”

It suited him; but then, most everything did. They spent the morning together in the house, lost in lazy pleasures. The Christmas meal in the dining hall, followed by carol singing for those who wanted to – and they figured they might as well – was pleasant; certainly more than anything Yuuri could imagine being offered at Gaia. He and Victor snuggled on the sofa in the afternoon and watched Mexican baseball. Then he spent some time in the kitchen preparing foods for the coming week, either to freeze or to grab from the fridge in a hurry. Victor had brought some electronics back from the workshop and sat at the kitchen table, tinkering with them. Then Yuuri was surprised to receive a brief visit from Sheila, who invited them to their house for drinks later that evening. Not wanting to be rude, he accepted. Victor seemed genuinely delighted at the idea.

As well he might be, when the time came. As they sat around the large overstuffed dark brown sofa in Sheila and Sumayya’s house, which curved against the earthen wall behind it, all of them with glasses of red wine, it occurred to Yuuri that most of the time he’d spent with Victor outside of work had involved just the two of them. It was easy to forget how adept Victor was at pouring on the charm. Hadn’t that been one of the many things about him that had mesmerized Yuuri years back, when he’d watched interviews with him and lectures he’d given that were streamed on the Cloud? He could make anyone believe that a neuron was the most important, fascinating thing in the world, just waiting for someone to tease out its secrets.

It also meant, he thought with a wave of warmth, that Victor saw no need to behave that way where he was concerned. He couldn’t remember him ever having done so, in fact…apart from that very first day he turned up in the office, he recalled with a fond smile. Since then, though, Victor had only ever been purely himself, even if he’d held certain things back. And yet it was riveting to watch him with Sheila and Sumayya, laughing at their jokes at the right times but not too much, flattering them in subtle ways, listening attentively as they talked about how they had met in San Francisco and decided seven years ago to try living at the Elkhorn Project. At the same time, he managed to deflect their own questions about his and Yuuri’s backgrounds, though he conceded they were from the east coast and had worked at universities. Yuuri decided to leave the socializing to the master and gradually sank further into himself, savoring his sips of wine and visually inspecting the colorful rugs and paintings of nature scenes on the walls.

“…baseball,” Victor said, and Yuuri suddenly felt his eyes on him. Sheila’s and Sumayya’s as well.

“Sorry, what?” he said, sitting up and snapping to attention.

“He’s been dozing off over there,” Summaya said to Sheila with a laugh. As usual, her hair hung in a thick braid down her back, though in place of denim and the athletic jacket, she was wearing a striking apple-green shalwar kameez embroidered with gold. Victor almost matched in a way, as his new shirt was made of a similar material. Sheila’s red dress was tight over her figure and loose at the neck, with an ornamental red belt. It hadn’t occurred to Yuuri to dress up for the occasion. In jeans and an aqua T-shirt, he felt like he typically did in situations like this: as if everyone else understood what was going on, while he was lost at sea with no indication of direction.

“You’ve given him too much wine, _dholna_. Maybe I ought to make some coffee,” Sheila suggested.

“No, it’s OK,” Yuuri said. “I was just thinking. What were you saying about baseball?”

“Alex asked me if people played sports here, and I said I wasn’t an authority on it, but I mentioned some sports that I know of, and he said oh good because you love baseball. Does that mean to watch or to play?”

“Both. There’s a baseball team here?”

Sheila nodded and sipped her wine. “I’ve seen them out practicing but I’ve never been to a game. They might let you play if you ask.”

“Thanks, I’ll look into it.”

They chatted for a while longer, and then Victor suggested they call it a night, thanking Sheila and Sumayya for their hospitality, which Yuuri echoed. Victor had made a couple of friends, at least. Yuuri got the feeling they’d be willing to take over his house-building duties for him for a week if he just said the word. Well, they were nice people, he thought as he walked with Victor across the short expanse to their house. The smell of woodsmoke drifted from the chimney and diffused into the cool air. It was almost instinctive now, the way he stuffed thoughts about science and research and a career, Crow and agents and laser guns out of his mind whenever they attempted to surface, until they retreated back to the dark depths in which they normally lurked. But it was impossible to eradicate them completely. Sometimes it felt like they bled into the very fabric of his being, turning everything that was good to bittersweet; even now, when he supposed he ought to be happy that Victor seemed to have enjoyed his birthday, and it had been the first Christmas in years that he’d spent with someone else and had eaten traditional food, which hadn’t been half bad, at the dining hall. And had he and Victor really been singing Christmas carols? He could hardly believe it. Maybe he’d done OK after all.

Victor unlocked the door and looked down at him, and he got the feeling he’d received an echo of his thoughts. He kissed Yuuri’s temple and said gently, “Come sit with me by the fire for a while?”

Yuuri gave him a small smile and followed him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From back in Chapter 22 – [“Unchained Melody”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0) by The Righteous Brothers


	57. Chapter 57

January near Sonora wasn’t the icebox that Yuuri was used to in Boston. The temperature at night could sometimes drop below freezing, and occasionally it snowed, though the morning sun would quickly melt it away. There were also days when it was so warm that no jacket was needed outdoors.

As he jogged home across the bridge over the Elkhorn River one Saturday afternoon, Yuuri felt grateful for it, though he had a feeling things would balance out in the summertime, which was likely to be very uncomfortable. Would they still be here then? As long as the Institute didn’t know where they were, he could imagine time slipping through their fingers – days, weeks, months, years even – until he realized one morning that this had become his life. Their life. No longer a step between one place and another, but their final destination.

 _No_ , he thought as he passed houses and gathering places. He didn’t like that word, _final._ He and Victor both had goals that couldn’t be realized here. They weren’t going to settle for less. The genius who had revealed so much about the workings of the mind, and who had so much potential yet to fulfil, was not going to be reduced to living out his days cobbling together thirty-year-old tech and building houses out of mud. And Yuuri thought it was safe to include himself in that promise. There were discoveries waiting to be made. He was going to make them.

As he often did, however, he consoled himself through the frustrating inertia by reminding himself that it wasn’t all a loss; that the paralysis had not sunk into every corner of his life. He was proud of what he’d been achieving with the children at the school; they seemed to like him and his lessons, even though he knew he wasn’t the world’s greatest disciplinarian. And he felt a part of this commune in a way that had never happened at Gaia; partially because people were mostly nice to each other and seemed to take pleasure in being here, but also because, as Carla had said, the administrative structures gave everyone a voice. He and Victor had been attending area meetings in gathering places, or on cold nights inside someone’s house or at the main lodge, and all twenty-odd residents knew each other by name, or alias in their case. Yuuri never volunteered to say much at the meetings, and Victor didn’t either, both of them absorbing the proceedings as new residents, though they were frequently asked for their opinions. So when Yuuri performed the sorts of tasks that required more physical effort and tended to be dull and repetitive, he could at least derive some satisfaction from the knowledge that he was doing something to help people he actually knew, and who would appreciate it. Cooking their meals. Tending animals that provided their food. Building their houses. Carla had done more than anyone else to put a human face on it all. Sometimes what he did felt worthwhile simply because _she_ saw it that way. What was she doing here at this commune as an area councilor? She ought to be in national government, making big waves. Maybe one day she still could, if that was what she wanted.

The most important thing in his life, though, was Victor. They seemed to have tacitly decided to identify themselves as partners, though Yuuri didn’t like the term; it sounded like a business arrangement. But _boyfriends_ didn’t seem appropriate for people who were living together; and _lovers_ , unless you were, say, southern European, had overt sexual connotations that people in this part of the world could be uncomfortable with. Which was more than a little funny if you thought about it, because what else were they, if they were living together and had a sexual relationship? What was wrong with calling it what it was?

He jogged past a pond where ducks were floating on the surface and the rays of the winter sun danced on the quiet silver ripples. It was still hard to believe, even now, that this was what he had. A mature, loving relationship – with Victor Nikiforov, of all people. The thought of it lifted his heart and made it sing when nothing else would. After all those years of being alone, overweight, _different_ from everyone else. Victor had never treated him that way; had never made him feel anything less than wanted – adored, even. His seemingly unshakeable belief that Yuuri was worth it had been nudging his own view of himself in that direction, little by little, like warm waters lapping at a glacier. The familiar feelings of exposure, anxiety and embarrassing inexperience were melting into something strange and new: the tentative roots of a conviction that there wasn’t actually anything wrong with him; that he had his faults like anyone else, but they didn’t define him any more than his successes did. This was what he and Rahul were acknowledging in each other when they said _Namaste_ – the selfhood that contained godliness, the transcendent.

 _Wow, Katsuki, this is deep stuff._ He laughed. No deeper, maybe, than solving for _dx_ over _dt_ to the _nth_ degree. Just different concepts. His feet pounded the dirt as he turned a corner into the home stretch; the house wasn’t far down this road. Strange, the things his brain came up with when he wasn’t able to keep it occupied with a playlist of workout music.

He wondered what Victor had been up to. They’d been living together in the house for over a month, but it was hard to get used to the fact that that was what they were doing. There was no longer any pressure to make use of limited time together, like there had been when they’d gone on dates. If they did nothing more than share a kiss in the morning, they would see each other later, and perhaps watch a movie together on a laptop, go to the gym, listen to music, just talk, or…well, or have sex. Most days, in fact. As sated as he might feel afterward, however, desire would always come flaming back. It amazed him, though perhaps it shouldn’t. No one was as desirable as Victor. And he was happily doing things with Yuuri that Yuuri had longed to do with another man since he’d been old enough to feel the urge, as well as introducing him to some he hadn’t been aware were possible. It was all a heady mixture, which he’d discovered could overpower his inhibitions in a way that only used to be possible after he’d imbibed so much alcohol that he was thoroughly lanced. The shameless ways he moved when they were in an intimate embrace; the things he _said_ – or cried out…Sometimes he hardly recognized himself. He smirked. He wouldn’t mind exploring that little mystery again and again, with the amazing man who had so thoroughly captured his heart.

And yet those same living arrangements had a way of pulling him back down to earth, too. You could love the person you lived with, but it would be difficult to keep them on a pedestal. Their house consisted of one large room, the open loft area above, and the bathroom. Yuuri hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, because it had felt wrong somehow that he should be anything other than blissfully happy after moving in together with the love of his life, but he’d felt a little stifled at first. Prickly. Fortunately it didn’t take him long to realize that it was because he needed his own space and time to himself in order to recharge, and that was no slight to Victor; it was simply who he was. The _really_ difficult bit had been trying to explain this to Victor as tactfully as possible, so that he didn’t feel like Yuuri was deliberately avoiding him for some unknown reason; but once he’d said so, Victor had seemed totally unsurprised, as if he’d expected it. So now Yuuri went on jogs alone sometimes, or went to the store by himself, though they did those things together too. And he’d resumed his evening ESP sessions several times a week, reclining on a mattress in the loft with a floor lamp next to it, the only furniture they’d placed up there. As he always had, he shunted the tragedy of the Orphic egg victims aside so that he could get on with what he needed to do, though thoughts of them would inevitably return to reopen old scars.

It was hard to tell if Victor had a similar need for time alone. Yuuri supposed everyone did to an extent. What he _did_ seem to have a need to do was scatter things around the house. He brought tech back from the workshop on occasion, and it had begun to build up; there weren’t many places to store it. Yuuri had been reminded of how Phichit’s gear used to take over the office sometimes. He knew he wasn’t perfect himself, though. Apparently he stole the bedcovers on a regular basis, for which he could only apologize; and he knew sometimes Victor worried that he wasn’t going to get up in the morning in time for work – often it was all he could do to throw some clothes on and rake a comb through his hair before he needed to leave. It was true that he felt less incentive to get ready to make mud bricks than he did to, say, read articles in journals that interested him and sparked off new ideas for research; but it always had been, and no doubt always would be, a struggle for him to be friends with mornings. On top of all that, in such close quarters there was just no hiding the most embarrassing or offputting parts of himself sometimes. Bodily functions. Cutting his toenails; he’d gone barefoot outside to do that. Snoring – though to his surprise, it was Victor who did that occasionally. But as he’d decided that very first morning he’d awakened in the house, it was because he didn’t share those things with other people, and was now sharing them with Victor – and Victor likewise with him – that it felt intimate.

Well intimate, maybe, but not necessarily romantic. He had a sudden image of being middle-aged, his bedtime routine consisting of plucking his nostril hairs with tweezers, or scraping out junk from underneath his fingernails, or releasing pent-up wind. _No. Just, no. If that’s how I’m destined to end up, kill me now._

As he trotted toward the house, he caught sight of Victor pouring something from a pot into the recycling container for cooking oil, which stood with the other recycling and compost bins against the wall. He was barefoot, wearing black sweatpants and a white short-sleeved shirt, over which was incongruously tied the white apron. There was a dusting of orange powder on the front. Yuuri came to a stop next to him. Victor smiled and said hello, but his brow was clouded.

“You’ve been cooking?” Yuuri said, wiping the sheen of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Trying to,” Victor sighed. “I was hoping to surprise you, but well…this recipe looked easier than it turned out to be.”

Yuuri peered at the pot, then sniffed the air drifting out of the door. Burnt. _What_ had been burnt, he couldn’t be certain. “What have you been making? Maybe I can help.”

Victor gave him a sheepish look and went into the house, Yuuri following. When they got to the counter in the kitchenette, Yuuri gasped. “You’ve been busy. Wow.”

“Remember how I asked you a while ago if you had a recipe for samosas? Ones with paleo ingredients?” He pointed to his tablet on the counter. “I thought I was doing OK.”

“So what happened?” Yuuri asked, eyeing the neat piles of finely chopped vegetables. There was a little bowl of ground spices, which seemed to be the source of the powder on Victor’s apron. Yuuri gave it a sniff. Turmeric, coriander, cumin, cinnamon. “This all seems fine.”

“I tried to cook the mustard seeds, like it says.” It was almost a whine, and Yuuri forced himself not to smile. “I let the oil get hot, and put them in, and they popped like it said they should, and almost right after that, they burned.”

“How hot was the oil?”

“I turned the heat all the way up.”

“There’s your problem, then.” Yuuri gently took the pan from Victor and gave it a quick soapy wash and dry. “You kind of have to imagine you’re cooking popcorn – ”

“I’ve never cooked popcorn. I always bought it in bags or had it delivered. Who cooks popcorn?” There was definitely a whine in his voice now. Yuuri found his frustration endearing somehow, maybe because he had put so much work into something he wasn’t used to doing, just to make him happy.

“Well anyway,” Yuuri said, placing the pot on the stove and pouring some olive oil in, “if you _were_ cooking popcorn, you’ve only got a short time between it popping and scorching, so you don’t want the heat to be too high. So with black mustard seeds, you need to take the pan off the heat, or put other ingredients in, as soon as the seeds pop.” He turned the ring on.

“This doesn’t tell you that,” Victor muttered. He’d picked up the tablet and was scrolling through the recipe.

“I guess not. It just assumes you know.”

“It’s stupid, then.”

“Victor,” Yuuri said with a smile, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Let’s do this together. I’m really touched that you’ve gone to all this trouble.”

The dark expression on Victor’s face suddenly melted away, and he beamed back at him.

Yuuri showed him how to cook the mustard seeds. Victor insisted on stirring while Yuuri read out the instructions from the recipe for what to add next, and when. After Victor shook the powdered spices in, Yuuri leaned over the pot and inhaled. “That smells wonderful.” And Victor really had been artful with chopping everything up, right down to the finely minced ginger and garlic; Yuuri would ordinarily never have bothered to that degree. He stepped behind Victor and slipped his arms around his waist while Victor tended to the mix of vegetables and spices.

“I like you in that apron,” he whispered, kissing his shoulder.

Victor huffed a laugh. “This is my domestic slave look, didn’t you know?”

At his words, a succession of lewd images flashed through Yuuri’s mind. Victor standing at the stove in an apron and nothing else. In a tight ballet leotard. In leather gear. Jesus, what had gotten into him? “You’re giving me ideas now,” he said playfully in a low voice.

“Oh good.”  

Yuuri moved to stand next to him, and their lips met for a heated kiss. Still holding the cooking spoon with his left hand, Victor rested his right on Yuuri’s neck. Yuuri dragged his hand across the front of Victor’s apron. Lost in Victor’s warmth and the honey of his mouth, he almost stopped caring that they were trying to cook, and that Victor’s first attempt had already gone badly. But he had enough presence of mind to pull back and say, “We’d better not let the food burn.”

“Hm? Oh…” Then he turned and stirred. “Oh. You’re right. Do you think this is done?”

Yuuri had a check and a taste and said he thought so; then they made the dough for the pastry, rolled it out thin, cut it into circles, spooned the vegetable filling on top, and folded them into triangular parcels, which they began frying in batches. Victor said he had no idea so much work was involved.

“You’re not joking,” Yuuri said, turning the samosas in the pan with a spatula. “I’ve never made these very often. Just when I wanted to treat myself.”

“Well _I_ wanted to treat you this time,” Victor said, leaning over the counter and giving him a fond grin.

“You are, Vitenka.”

Victor raised his eyebrows. “Keep talking like that and I’ll get distracted again.”

“Oh good.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Aren’t you glad?” Victor flashed him a heated look, but Yuuri lifted the samosas out of the pan with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate covered with paper towels. “Honestly, we’ll never get anything done if we behave like this when we work together.”

“We do fine at the house-building sites,” Victor said, dropping more samosas gently into the oil.

“Of course we do,” Yuuri laughed. “There’s other people there, and we’re getting paid to do a job.”

“There’s no one else here now.”

“And we’ve got food to cook. For a treat, remember? Besides, don’t you want to know how the tryout went?”           

“How did it go?”

Yuuri’s jog home had followed a visit with the commune’s baseball team, who had been practicing. He had been surprised to discover, when he found their details on the LAN, that they played every season but the middle of summer, when it could get so hot that sometimes all but the most essential work at the commune shut down. One of the coaches had agreed to let him come for a tryout, and they’d loaned him a glove. It had been daunting, initially; they had a proper playing field with fencing behind home plate and a wall encircling the area, enclosing the outfield. There were stands for spectators, and dugouts, and the team even had uniforms. A generous grant a decade ago had financed most of it, he’d been told, from a former commune member who’d moved away and founded a successful business, and happened to be a big baseball fan.

Yuuri’s first thought had been, _I’m never going to be good enough to play here._ He couldn’t help it. He imagined himself choking in a variety of situations, from striking out to dropping a pop fly to attempting to get to the next base when the baseperson was standing there with the ball waiting to tag him out. But then he told himself that Victor wouldn’t want him to think these things; would tell him to imagine the opposite. Getting a hit. Making a good play. Safely getting to the next base. That was what he kept trying to focus on.

And to his amazement, it seemed to work. He made some decent contact with the ball when he practiced batting. The team already had a good first-base player, but they said they needed a regular person at third. After seeing what he could do, they liked him enough to give him a chance, though he found it a strain to throw the ball across that distance with the strength and accuracy required.

He informed Victor, who was effusive as he fished the last batch of samosas out of the oil. “I can’t wait to see you play, Yuuri. I bet you’ll be wonderful.”

“I don’t know about that, but I can promise you I _won’t_ be to start out with, anyway. I’d rather you didn’t come to watch until I’ve had more practice.”

“Before you show off to your boyfriend?” Victor said with a smile.

“Um…well, maybe,” Yuuri answered, his cheeks pinking. “I’ve got to buy myself a glove in Sonora. And…I don’t know how it’s going to work out at third base, unless I can strengthen my arm muscles. Do you think…maybe I could borrow your weights?” Victor had found a set of hand weights in town and used them for brief but regular workouts, as he said was his habit, which went some way toward explaining his toned physique. Though they’d also highlighted the minor problem they had with living in a small house with little storage space.

“Sure. I can show you some exercises that ought to help.”

“And I’ll make sure I put them somewhere where they can’t trip anyone up, when I’m done.”

Victor looked affronted for a moment.

Yuuri said matter-of-factly, “I stubbed my toe the other night against one that had rolled until it was just under the bedsheet, where I couldn’t see it.”

“Oh. I must’ve forgotten where I put it.”

Yuuri chuckled and picked up a samosa from a previous batch that had cooled. “I love you anyway.” Then he took a bite. “Victor, this is beautiful. Was this your first time making these?”

Victor glowed with the praise as he took one himself. “As you know. With me being so ignorant in the ways of cooking Indian food. I don’t think I ever _have_ cooked Indian food before. But I can follow a recipe. Most of the time.” There was a cracking noise as he bit in. “Hm. Not bad.”

“We’ve got a lot of these. Maybe we should take some over to Sheila and Sumayya.”

“I bet they’d love that.”

They ate in silence until each had finished, and then Victor picked up another one. He saw Yuuri staring and him and laughed. “What?”

“Just you and that apron.”

“It’s practical, don’t you think? Hm, maybe _too_ practical. Maybe I should’ve gotten one with frills around the edges.”

Yuuri swallowed. “That’d be…distracting.”

“There’s that word again.” He lifted his samosa for a bite, then seemed to think better of it and put it back down on the plate. “We do that to each other a lot, don’t we?”

“You’re welcome to do it to me any time.”

Victor hooded his eyes. “I love it when you talk like that.”

“I had a thought about you and that apron earlier,” Yuuri said, feeling his cheeks blazing now, but forcing himself through the embarrassment. “Want to hear about it?”

“Oh yes,” Victor purred.

Yuuri hooked a finger into the top of the apron and pulled him in for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> n.b. See Chapter 31 notes for a recipe for vegetable samosas.


	58. Chapter 58

“So…how long have you been here?” Yuuri asked. He was perched on the end of a chair with faded yellow and green stripes, sipping at coffee that was too strong and sweet. But it was all that had been on offer, and he hadn’t wanted to be rude.

“Three months,” Willow replied. She sat on a blue sofa as if her spare frame had been swallowed by it. Her hands were cupped around a white ceramic mug perched on bony denim-clad knees.

Yuuri wasn’t sure what had taken him so long to find out who she was and where she lived, and stop by for a visit. He and Victor had seen her in the dining hall on a few more occasions, always with her three young children, but all they’d ever done was make brief eye contact across the room. Maybe, he thought, it was because his circumstances were different from when he’d met Rahul; he had Victor now, and was content here. Well, more so than he had been. Though he suspected there was more to it than that. There was always an agitated feeling coming from Willow to some degree. He had never sensed still waters within her; the surface was always rippled by deeper unrest. Perhaps that was what it was like to raise three children on your own.

He’d described her to Carla, who had told him where he could find her, and he’d decided to visit her house and see if she was in, which she was. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Victor had been happy for Yuuri to go on his own. They weren’t certain how ESP would work between three people, and they’d decided they didn’t want Willow to feel as if they were ganging up on her. It was Yuuri’s habit, anyway, to help new presences. Though she was physically here and therefore not just a presence. And he got the sense that she wasn’t new to ESP, either; just to him.

Her house appeared to have been built to the same plan as the one he and Victor lived in, with the ladder to the loft area missing, maybe because it would have been dangerous for the children to try to climb it. The furniture had no doubt come from the commune’s warehouse. There were toys scattered around the earthen floor; the twin girls, who Willow had introduced as Carol and Sarah, age three, were sitting on the floor with drawing pads and crayons, while Tom, age five, was building with a box of brightly colored plastic interlocking bricks. The material had long been banned from children’s toys, as it had from most things, and he reckoned the set must be at least twenty years old.

“Alex and I have been here for about a month and a half,” Yuuri said, watching the girls draw. They were both wearing jeans and sweaters, one pink and the other blue, with pale wispy hair like their mother’s.

“You both have it, don’t you? You and – is he your husband or something?”

Her words made ESP sound like a disease. There were rings under her watery gray eyes. She seemed…pinched. Though he wasn’t sure why that word seemed appropriate. “He’s my partner, and yes, we both have ESP.”

“That’s what you call it?”

“Why, what do you call it?”

“My mother called it the sight. It runs in the family. God help us. It’s early for them,” she added, looking at the children, “but they’ll probably get it too.”

Yuuri sipped more of his overpowering coffee, trying to find a way in with her, to get her to open up a little. He was conscious that he was probably the least likely person to be able to do so with anybody. “It was hard for me when I developed the ability…um, the sight. At first. But then I discovered things I could do with it. Sometimes I really enjoy using it.”

“You’re lucky, then.”

 _[Will you tell me why it’s such a negative experience for you?]_ he sent, looking at her quietly.

She closed her eyes briefly. “Please don’t do that. It freaks me out.”

Yuuri swallowed. She wasn’t making this easy. He was about to speak when Tom walked up to him, holding something he’d built with the bricks, which looked like a rectangular building.

“This is a house,” the brown-haired blue-eyed boy announced. “It’s got five windows and three doors and a secret hiding place here.” He pointed at a boxlike structure in one corner.

“Why does it need a secret hiding place?” Yuuri asked him.

“That’s where the magic cat lives.”

“Oh.” Yuuri smiled, then glanced at Willow, who was smiling back. She looked several years younger that way.

“Tom’s been telling me all about the magic cat lately, haven’t you, honey? He takes it for walks and feeds it things we find on the way.”

“Who else lives in the house?” Yuuri asked, trying to think of ways of making conversation with a five-year-old. The youngest children he taught at the school were older than this.

“The people who own the cat.”

“Is it finished?”

Tom rolled his eyes as if it were a silly question. “I have to put a roof on, or the rain’ll get in.” He took it away and returned to the box of bricks on the floor.

Yuuri wondered briefly if the girls were drawing magic animals, too. He couldn’t tell from where he was sitting. “Are you by yourselves here, then, the four of you?” he asked Willow. The threadbare look had returned to her face.

“If you want to know where their father is, your guess is as good as mine. He left, and nobody knows where he went. He doesn’t send any money, and the authorities didn’t want to know about it.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Yuuri could think to say.

“Me too. Everybody’s sorry.” She sighed. The mug of coffee seemed to be serving the purpose of warming her hands more than anything else, though the house wasn’t cold. Her voice dropped as she continued, though Yuuri felt sure the children could still hear every word, and an uncomfortable ripple passed through him. “We’re from San Diego. I didn’t want to leave; I had friends there. But I was afraid of ending up homeless. I didn’t have a job, and I didn’t get far in school, so Silicon Valley wasn’t exactly gonna hire me anytime soon. This place said they’d take us in, though I had to get my chip taken out. They said I might decide I was happier without it anyway.” She paused. “I ain’t.”

Yuuri decided he’d had as much of the bitter tang underlying the cloying sweetness in his drink as he could tolerate, and fiddled with his mug, unsure of what to say, feeling like he’d inadvertently strayed out of his depth. He also wasn’t comfortable having a conversation like this in front of small children, though he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to take an eye off them for long either. Well, they seemed to be well enough behaved for now, and this was just one big room, wasn’t it?

“I’ll go wash the mugs, if you want to come,” Yuuri said, standing.

She stood also, taking a long look at the children, as if she could leave part of her presence hovering over them. Then she took Yuuri’s mug and went into the kitchenette, putting them both in the sink along with other dishes, and filling it with soapy water. “Didn’t care for the coffee?”

“Um, I’m just not used to caffeine. It makes me jittery.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s OK. It was nice of you to offer.” Yuuri slipped his hands into his jeans pockets and stood with his back to the counter, watching the children while Willow did the dishes. “How are you finding it here, apart from missing your chip?”

She shrugged. “They’re nice to us, I guess. I work part-time while Tom’s at kindergarten and the girls are with a nanny.” She glanced at him. “Though I ain’t exactly sending them to Mary Poppins. It’s a lady who cares for children while their parents are working. Cause I don’t have any qualifications, they’ve got me doing stuff here like working on farms…and beekeeping, would you believe?” She huffed a laugh.

“I work on the farms, help build houses and cook – and I’m a science professor,” Yuuri volunteered. _Am I? I’ve got to stop pretending to myself that I could just go straight back to work if I showed up at MIT tomorrow._ He would also be skewered by his colleagues for omitting to put the “associate” in front of the “professor.” Seemingly the more mundane his life became, the more his imagination wanted to build him up into somebody important.

Willow stopped what she was doing and stared. “Really? Shouldn’t you be at some university somewhere?”

 _Yes, I should._ “It didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting back to her work.

Yuuri bit his lip and picked up a dish towel from a rail, then began drying the dishes and stacking them.

“I worry about the kids’ futures in this place,” Willow continued. “They behaving themselves over there?”

“Looks like it.” They seemed quietly industrious in their tasks.

“I mean, what if they want to leave here one day? _I_ want to leave here one day. How good an education will they get here? This place is only small. It’s kind of backwards in some ways. There ain’t a lot of funding for things. They don’t pay me much. I doubt if they’d pay my kids much either. I don’t want to raise them to be farmers and beekeepers.”

“They seem to take care of people here OK,” Yuuri said, feeling a strange urge to defend the commune, at least to an extent. “Nobody’s poor.”

“Depends on what you call poor.”

Yuuri fell silent, suddenly aware of his elevated pulse rate and breathing. As if he’d been running from something. He _knew_ this feeling. The black tendrils had begun to creep through him, chilling, threatening. But why? He suddenly felt convinced that an agent was outside, looking for a way to sneak in and trap him. Or he’d discover the shielding hadn’t worked against Crow, and he was going to send an even stronger attack at any moment. Or Victor would decide he was a pain in the ass to live with, no longer find him desirable, leave him…

He gasped into a constricted throat and looked at Willow, to find her gazing back with something like resignation. “Crap,” she said. “I really am sorry – what did you say your name was? Will? Honestly, I didn’t mean it.”

“Mean what?” Yuuri said. He gulped and ran a hand through his hair.

She washed the last plate and picked up the dish towel Yuuri had left on the counter, burying her hands in it, seemingly for something to do with them. “People tell me I make them anxious. They get a little dose of a whole lot of what it is for me. I guess you’d be extra-sensitive to it. I was just standing here worrying. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way too.”

Yuuri let out a breath and tried to smile. He thought maybe it came across as more of a grimace. The feedback loop that he and Victor could build between them, sharing their desires, urging them higher and higher in each other – that was something incredibly special. _This_ feedback loop was altogether different, however; Willow stoking the anxiety in him that he was already prone to. But it didn’t have to be a loop, he suddenly realized. Not if he refused to transmit the anxiety back to Willow.    

“I’ve accidentally done the same thing,” he said to her. “Sometimes it’s hard to contain.”

She sighed. “That’s so true.” Then she sniffled and turned to mimic his stance, so that she was watching the children near the sofa. “I think the…ESP makes it worse. Magnifies it.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “I have to take pills for it sometimes. With three little kids, you know, I can’t be collapsing into anxiety attacks.”

Yuuri folded his arms across his chest. “I have anxiety too, sometimes. It doesn’t seem to be attached to the ESP, though, usually. If anything, the ESP can make me feel like I’m more in control of things, which makes me less afraid.”

“You said _more_ in control, not less? Are you serious?”

He thought of the things he’d learned how to do, which would probably not be of much use to her here. Disabling guns and cameras. Blocking people from using their chips. Other abilities that were even more esoteric. But there was also what he and Victor did for each other on occasion; well, mainly it was Victor who did it for him. One of them looking into the other’s eyes and sending warm, calming thoughts. He described it to Willow and asked her if she’d like him to do that now.

To his surprise, she shook her head. “It’s nice of you, but to me this is all just scary shit. I wish it’d go away.”

He tried once more. “I work with people all the time who are new to ESP and frightened. It doesn’t have to be like that, though. There really is a good side to it.” He turned to face her, meeting her eyes earnestly. “I can show you, if you’ll let me.”

“You know, if you weren’t living with a partner, I’d be tempted to think that was a pickup line,” she observed dryly.

A dart of anger passed through Yuuri, and he decided that he did not like this woman. So what if she had ESP. Crow had ESP, too. But then the intensity of the moment passed, and he found some sympathy again. Did he really know what was best for her, as if she couldn’t be any judge of it? And if they didn’t spark off an instant friendship, and probably never would…It shouldn’t matter, he told himself.  

He told her that she was welcome to come visit him or message him over the LAN if she needed to, and she thanked him. Then he said his goodbyes to her and her children and left. It was a ten-minute walk back to his house, and when he went inside, he was greeted by the aroma of roasted garlic. His mouth watered.“I didn’t know you were planning on cooking,” Yuuri said as he joined Victor in the kitchenette. Seeing him in the apron again sent a pulse of heat to his groin when he remembered what they’d ended up doing the last time he’d worn it.

“I’m getting the hang of it, I think. Anyway, how did it go?” he asked, kissing Yuuri’s temple before returning to slicing a savoy cabbage.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of each other, though.”

He set the table and helped Victor put the finishing touches to the food. They had each been doing a share of the cooking, though breakfast was often a simple affair, and they tended to eat at the dining hall for lunch. They hadn’t discussed it, but Victor knew which days Yuuri would be cooking for the commune, and that was when he seemed to assume he would not want to have to do the same thing when he got home. It would have been easy enough just to eat at the dining hall on those days, but Yuuri was touched by Victor’s thoughtfulness, and it was nice to share a meal together in the house. And beyond nice – sexy even, in a way, to be served wonderful food cooked for him by the man he loved. Then he wondered idly if it felt the same for Victor when he cooked for him. 

“This is beautiful,” he enthused when they sat down at the little table to eat. “Just the aroma of the garlic when I walked in…it was like foreplay for the main course.” Victor gave him a crooked grin, his eyes sparkling. Had he really said that…? Where was the audacity coming from these days? “Did you come up with these recipes yourself?” The garlic had been sprinkled, along with olive oil and parmesan cheese, on the tops of baked sweet potatoes. With those, they were having grilled pork chops, steamed strips of cabbage, and sour cream and beetroot pickle. Yuuri was in heaven.

“I might’ve had some help from the Cloud. I _did_ cook sometimes before we came here, though, so it’s not completely new.”

“I remember,” Yuuri said with a smile. There had only been one opportunity he’d had to sample Victor’s cooking in Boston, and he wasn’t going to forget it in a hurry…as long as he didn’t think about how that night had ended, so very differently to how it had begun.

“Anyway, what happened with Willow? I can’t imagine she thought you were anything but lovely and charming.”

Yuuri guffawed. “Who’s that you’re describing? But…well, she doesn’t seem to want to use the ESP. I think she’s scared of it. She’s scared of a lot of things.” He went on to describe the conversation they’d had at her house, her background, why she was there, how anxious she seemed to be. “I can tell she cares about her kids, but I think things are hard for her.”

“You can’t solve everyone’s problems for them,” Victor observed, poking at a piece of sweet potato with a fork.

“I guess not.” They ate in silence for a moment. “Talking with her about the ESP made me think, though. We haven’t been using it much lately, have we? We were practicing at the places we stayed at before we came here, though I know it gave us something to do – ”

“We had more reasons to use it, too. Let’s hope those reasons don’t come back anytime soon.”

“But we still ought to be practicing, don’t you think?”

“Well I _have_ done a little on my own.” Victor finished his last bite of pork chop, covered in sour cream and beet pickle. “But, sure…it could be fun.”

***

Yuuri leaned an arm against the thick straight trunk of the ponderosa pine next to him. The deep fractured patterns in the mahogany-colored bark could be the feature in a painting, he thought with admiration. This tall, old, stately tree had never harmed anyone. And yet they were, possibly, about to riddle it with smoking holes.

“I know this isn’t the most reassuring thing to be talking about,” Victor said, standing a couple of meters back, “but if we encountered an agent…”

Yuuri looked at him, in his black jacket with the shimmering gold dragon and black slacks, his laser gun held loosely in one hand near his waist, a serious expression on his face – and decided he had the appearance of an agent himself. Or someone from a TV show about spies and men in black. At first glance, at least. Until you looked into his clear blue eyes, and saw there the warm, gentle person underneath. And yet, Yuuri also remembered the very different expression that had taken over momentarily, after he had phase-shifted the laser gun fire and then stunned the agent into senselessness near Del Dios. A hard edge that was there, waiting to emerge at such times. Yuuri wondered if he had one himself.

“Go on,” he said. “I think I can handle it, Victor. If we encountered an agent…?”

“The first thing we try to do…”

“I think that depends on if there’s one or more. With one…” He thought back to his first encounters with them in Boston. “Disable the gun. They’re quick and easy to fire, and deadly. That’s…actually, that’s what I’d always do. I can’t imagine anything else would be more effective.”

“OK. And if there’s more than one agent?”

Yuuri remembered the boxcar coming to a halt in the desert and disarming the officials there, one after the other, with a sudden jolt of pride. “That’s still what I’d try to do.”

Victor nodded. “They won’t stop just because they’re disarmed, though. In that case…”

“I’m hoping we’d both have our guns; that’s help. We stun them.”

“And if we can’t do that…we send energy at them to knock them over.”

“You’re better at that than me. And it’s impossible to practice, anyway. There’s no one we can seriously try to hurt, just to see how good we can get at it.” He thought about the chicken he’d tried it with at Gaia and decided that kind of thing was still too ridiculous to contemplate.

“It’s an option, anyway,” Victor said. “But let’s say there are too many agents for us to cope with all at once. They’re firing at us.”

 _Shit,_ Yuuri thought with a shudder.

“Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Victor continued. “To see if we can phase-shift laser-gun fire.”

“We both know _you_ can.”

“I don’t know how good a track record I’d be able to put together, though. Maybe I got lucky that time. If you can move back…”

Yuuri did so quickly. Victor closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, his face set in determination, and fired at the tree. The bright blue streak passed harmlessly through the trunk and faded away in the distance without any explosions or smoke to indicate it had hit anything. They’d come into the forest to do this, where stray laser-gun fire would not cause too much damage or disruption. Yuuri had a feeling he might be the one to wreak havoc around them before he was up to Victor’s apparent ability level. “Flink,” he breathed.

Victor grinned, looking pleased with himself. He tried a few more times, always with the same result, and Yuuri had to fight down a mixture of admiration and envy. “My turn, I guess,” he said eventually. “Um…any advice?”

Victor thought for a moment. “I visualize the target disappearing completely. Obviously I can’t make it do that, but it seems to work the way I need it to. Maybe something different will work for you.”

Yuuri focused his concentration, aimed at the tree, fired – and blazed a hole through the trunk. “Shit.”

“Here, let’s try this.” Victor fired at the tree, and took an even larger hole out of it. The smell of burning sap and wood filled the air before being dispersed by the breeze.

“What happened there?” Yuuri asked in surprise.

“I meant to do that.” Victor walked up to the tree, inspecting both holes. “The shot I just fired is a control – that’s what the gun does on its own, if no one interferes with it. Compare that to the hole you’ve made here.” He ran his fingers along the edge. “It’s smaller. You affected the laser fire, just not as much as you wanted to. I should’ve thought to get a tape measure and bring it.”

Yuuri smiled. Ever the painstaking scientist. “Well that doesn’t make me feel _so_ bad. I guess I’d better practice some more. Sorry, amigo,” he said to the tree, stroking its bark briefly.

He took a few more holes out of the trunk, and they were smaller still. Unfortunately, however, the gunfire was likely to be strong enough to kill, as long as it could affect the target. He fought down frustration, picked another tree for more abuse, and carried on practicing. Victor watched for a while, then chose different objects to shoot his laser at – a rock, a pile of leaves, the ground itself. If it was possible to have an ESP speciality, this seemed to be his, Yuuri thought with awe. He shot his own gun a few more times and continued to produce a smoking hole. But he seemed to be improving each time he tried.

Curious about what Victor was doing, he turned and saw him sitting on the ground with a shoe and sock off, pointing his gun at his little toe. _“Victor, what the fuck,”_ he exclaimed, dashing over.

Victor looked up at him with a frown. “We’ve got to try this at some point. How else will we know if it works?”

“You know it works,” Yuuri said heatedly. “It’s been working for you since the first time you tried it, when you stopped the laser fire from hurting me.”

“I wanted to try something different.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What?”

“Phase-shifting the object the gun’s firing at, instead of the gunfire itself.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said in a small voice, thinking about this.

“That’s why I was aiming at other things around here. The ground was interesting…I seemed to be able to affect a radius of several meters, though I don’t know how far down it went, if it was a spherical shape or – ”

“Victor,” Yuuri said firmly, “you…you weren’t going to try to phase-shift _yourself_ , were you?”

Victor’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think of that. I was only going to try my toe.”

Yuuri pocketed his gun and knelt down beside him. “You can’t, Victor. You cannot do that. Not even your toe.”

“But think about it, Yuuri. It wouldn’t matter how many guns were firing at you, or where from, if none of them could hit you.”

“I can’t even shift the gunfire enough to make it harmless.”

“But I can. And I think I can do this, too.”

Yuuri shook his head. “No, Victor.”

Victor raised an eyebrow, his expression stern. “Is that supposed to be an order?”

“I…no,” Yuuri answered, taken aback. “But don’t I have some say in this? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Guess what? I don’t want to, either. But I don’t see what else I can do. It’s just a toe. The laser fire will cauterize it if this doesn’t work.”

“I can’t believe you’re sitting there talking like that,” Yuuri said, his voice getting higher. “Experimenting on yourself isn’t good science, Victor.”

“It is when it’s the only thing you’ve got to experiment on.”

“Fuck,” Yuuri said, running a hand over his face. And people told him _he_ was stubborn? He took what could be his last look at Victor’s toe. He…loved that toe. Had kissed it and done other pleasurable things with it. He suspected Victor might miss it even more than him.      

Victor’s eyes gentled as he watched him. “Yuuri…I’m not in the habit of experimenting on myself. Well, not in ways that could be dangerous. But don’t you see – our lives are at risk.”

“I know,” Yuuri mumbled.

“If we push what we’re learning with the ESP, maybe it could help us. I’d like it to help enough so that we don’t have to be running scared all the time. Maybe, eventually, we could even find ways to go on the offensive.” He paused. “Doesn’t that idea appeal to you?”

“Of course it does,” Yuuri said fervently. “I just…don’t see why we have to risk our necks while we’re at it.”

Victor gave him a smile. “A toe. Not a neck. I can do this, Yuuri.”

Yuuri swallowed, stood and backed away slightly, hugging his arms to his chest, the soft olive-green fleece giving him none of the usual comfort as he bit his lip and wondered if he should have put up more of an argument. He’d essentially just agreed with Victor that it would be OK to hurt himself. But when he put it the way he had…

He did a mental double-take as he watched Victor’s little toe, which was sticking out from the rest, fade. It was still visible, but the adjacent toe showed through, as did the dirt and grass. There was a strange shimmering quality to it, as if it were being projected in an old-time cinema onto a screen. A smile crept across Victor’s face, and he held up a coin so that Yuuri could see it. He was again reminded of a magician performing a trick; but knowing what was at stake, the thought of it made him feel sick. Victor brought the coin, between thumb and forefinger, toward his toe, and Yuuri had visions of the silver metal disc becoming wedged inside flesh and bone. His hand flew to his mouth and he wanted to close his eyes, but forced them to stay open.

Victor was slow and deliberating. He touched the side of the coin to what ought to have been the skin of his toe, then moved it up and down. “I can’t feel a thing,” he murmured. Then he moved it further in. It appeared to meet with no obstruction. Finally Victor passed the disc all the way through, several times, and placed it in his pocket. “I’d say that was a success, wouldn’t you?”

Yuuri was silent. He knew what Victor was planning to do next and wasn’t resting any easier about it.

“Hm, looks like this takes constant concentration,” Victor observed. In the time it had taken to put the coin away and pick up the laser gun, his toe had solidified. “I’ll have to remember that.” He stared at his toe and it shimmered again, becoming semi-transparent. Then he aimed. Yuuri stopped breathing, his hand still clamped against his mouth. Bright blue lanced from the gun, passing through Victor’s toe and across the ground, to blow a chunk out of a tree several meters away. But when Yuuri looked, the toe was still there, still see-through. Then it turned opaque as Victor looked up at him with a smile.

“Feels normal.” He wiggled all his toes.

Yuuri dropped his hand away from his mouth and took a deep breath in, then out. “Victor Nikiforov…” he said, shaking his head and huffing a laugh.

Victor’s eyes danced. “I’m not quite finished.” He stood and brushed himself off.

Yuuri’s stomach sank. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve got another idea.” When Yuuri started to protest, he cut him off. “This won’t be dangerous. Just…” He closed his eyes.

Yuuri gasped. Victor’s whole body started to shimmer. He caught glimpses through him of the reddish bark of the trees, their dark green needles, the blue of the sky. “Victor, _what are you doing_?” he whispered.

“It’s OK,” Victor said as he opened his eyes. “I don’t feel any different. Everything’s just a little strange…like I’m looking through a window with warped glass. But I’m still standing on the ground, and you’re still there…”

“Victor, oh my god.” Yuuri’s eyes were saucers. The two of them were working with the utter unknown, and who could say what might happen at any moment? Was this _safe_?  

Before he could react, Victor had stepped forward and raised a hand as if to touch his fleece. The fabric was unaffected, and Yuuri felt nothing. “Victor, for god’s sake, be careful. You could hurt us both.”

“Don’t worry; I’m not going to try putting a hand through you or anything,” he replied quietly. Then his body solidified. “But you’re right, it’s dangerous. I wanted to know if it was possible, though.”

“Apparently so,” Yuuri muttered, running a hand across his face and heaving a sigh.

“Oh, _Zvezda moya._ You worry so much about me.” He placed a gentle hand on Yuuri’s cheek.

“And you’re surprised about that?”

Victor just smiled softly and dropped his hand. “There’s one more thing I’d like to try, if you feel up to it.”

Yuuri knew his face must have expressed instant trepidation.

“I won’t take any silly risks, I promise. Try putting your scientist hat on, hm? The thrill of discovery.”

 _I love discovering things. I just don’t like to think you could be hurt in the process._ But then he considered what Victor had said earlier. _I don’t want to be running scared all the time. Maybe we could find ways to go on the offensive._ He told himself to stop being such a coward, and nodded.

Looking quietly pleased, Victor turned away and concentrated. Yuuri hadn’t seen him do this since they’d been staying at the motel, but he knew what it was, and his heart leaped into his throat, though he said nothing. The flash of blue light in the empty air. Expanding into an oval that slowly grew. This time it was the size of a full-length mirror before it stopped. Little blue lights licked at the border like the joined flames of candles. Inside was an absence; a void that was somehow reflective at the same time, bouncing light back rather than absorbing it. There was an alien feeling about it, as there always had been.

 _I am not a coward._ “Victor…why have you made it so big this time?”

“I wanted to see if I could,” he answered, staring into it. “Big enough for a person to go inside, maybe.” Yuuri once again began to protest, but he held a hand up. “Not me or you, and not today, I promise. But one day, if we determine that it’s safe, who knows? I thought maybe we could do some experiments and see if we could get a better idea of what the nature of this thing might be. I just wish we had a lab where we could study it properly.”

“I still have dreams about these things,” Yuuri said. “I…they feel frightening. But I’m not sure if it’s because they’re _meant_ to be frightening, or because that’s the interpretation my mind gives to them, because I don’t understand what these…portals are. _If_ that’s what they are.”

“I’ve brought some things that might help us learn more.” Victor picked up his backpack where they’d left them against a tree, and brought it over, then placed it on the ground and knelt beside it. He took a ball of thin twine from a pocket and a small pair of scissors, then snipped a length. “We’ve already tried tossing in an inorganic object, but we didn’t have any way of retrieving it. Should we try something now?”

Despite his lingering concern, Yuuri felt the fuse of curiosity light and burn within him, and he began to search for ideas. “Let’s find some more objects. There’s plenty around here.”

They chose a rock and a twig to begin with, each of them tethering one to a piece of twine. The rock was the first to go in; Yuuri watched it disappear as Victor tossed it into the silvery nothing-sheen of the portal. There was no tug on the twine; it simply hung between his fingers and the point where the rock had vanished. Victor gave it a moment, then tugged – and the rock came out and fell to the forest floor, looking as it had before it had gone in. He knelt and touched it.

“It’s cool. The same temperature it was when I held it before. Dry. Doesn’t feel like it’s changed at all.” He sighed. “We really do need a lab. This is all going to be guesswork. It could’ve been subjected to some kind of electromagnetic radiation, or an airless environment, who knows.”

Yuuri picked the rock up himself, feeling it. Victor was right; there was no indication it had been anywhere unusual. He threw the twig in next, with the same result. “Let’s try something a little different,” he said afterward, hunting around the forest floor. Eventually he spotted what he was after: a large plump earthworm, which he brought back in his palm. “I feel terrible about this, but better this jack than me,” he said, gently tying a length of twine around its middle.

Victor laughed. “OK. Good luck in there, little fellow,” he said to the earthworm.

Yuuri moved close to the portal and tossed the worm in. As before, the twine hung, seemingly suspended in the air. He timed a couple of minutes on his watch, then pulled on the twine. The worm emerged at the end of it and he put it in his palm, inspecting it carefully, Victor coming to peer at it as well. It squirmed instantly when he prodded it, and was as cool and moist as it had been before.

“Interesting,” Victor commented.

“Yeah.” Yuuri untied the twine from the worm, then put it back near the leaf pile where he’d found it. “You could be the most famous critter on the planet for what you just did,” he said, “but I suppose all you want to do is get back underground.”

Victor was laughing when Yuuri returned to the portal. “Look at us, talking to earthworms.”

“Hey, why not. And I’ve got another idea.” He retrieved his backpack and removed the GPS device.

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Victor said.

Yuuri felt his cheeks pink as he carefully wrapped and tied some twine to the little button-sized disc, weaving it around the clasp on the back. Holding it with one hand, he took out the small tablet it was linked with, and made sure it was able to pinpoint their location. Then he tossed the disc into the portal, keeping an eye on the tablet, Victor moving next to him to do the same. As soon as the button vanished, the signal ceased.

“Hm. If the tracker’s still physically here, this tablet can’t find it,” Victor said.

They stared at it for another minute, but nothing happened, so Yuuri gave the twine a pull. The disc emerged, and its location again appeared on the tablet. “It’s working,” he observed. “Seems fine. Though I don’t know if we learned much from that.”

“ _A_ , that a GPS signal doesn’t work between the portal and here, and _B_ , that electronic devices might be OK inside. That’s all right, isn’t it? And now _I_ have an idea.” Victor took his aircam from his backpack.

“Oh _flink_ ,” Yuuri said, excitement suddenly racing through him. He put the GPS away and stood to watch.

Victor flashed him a smile. “I hope so.” He began tying the twine around the small sphere, making sure he didn’t obstruct the aperture. “I wonder if this is how Howard Carter felt just before he entered the tomb of Tutankhamun.”    

“Maybe we’ll get to see wonderful things too.”

Victor winked at him, then tossed the aircam in. “It’s on the usual program to take random pictures. I’ll give it…five minutes.”

“This is the kind of thing I became a scientist for,” Yuuri said while they waited.

“You don’t seem as worried about it now.”

“No, it…it’s too interesting for that. If we were always afraid of the unknown, how would we ever learn anything?”

Victor brushed a finger under his chin playfully. “That’s the spirit.” He checked his watch. “Time’s up,” he announced, pulling on the twine. The aircam emerged from the portal, and he placed it in his palm and untied it. “It says it took ten photos, one every thirty seconds. Let me just download them onto my tablet, and…we’ll see.”

Yuuri was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, just like the children he taught, as he watched Victor’s tablet. When the file with the photos appeared and Victor clicked on it, however, they all showed the same thing: flat, milky gray. There might have been some fluctuations in shade from photo to photo, but it was hard to tell.

“Are you sure it was taking pictures in there?” Yuuri said, feeling deflated.

“I think so. If it hadn’t, it wouldn’t have shown on the display that there were ten photos in its memory. And if the aperture hadn’t opened, they’d be black, not gray. This seems to be what it saw in there.”

“A pea-souper of a fog,” Yuuri said with a small smirk.

“Hm. Well.” He put the aircam in his backpack, followed by the twine and the scissors. “There’s one more thing I want to do. I really want to try, Yuuri, but I promise I’ll be careful.”

Yuuri felt anxiety spring back at his words, and watched with a quickening pulse as Victor sat down on the ground near the edge of the portal, which hovered steadily about half a meter off the ground. He removed his shoe and sock again.

“Victor…”

“I want to touch it. It seems safe. Just a toe again.”

Yuuri crossed his arms over his chest, feeling he’d never forgive himself if he made no protest and Victor was injured. But he remained silent as Victor lifted his foot and moved it slowly toward the entrance to the portal. When his toes just met the border to the reflective-seeming surface, he stilled. “It’s like touching the surface of water. But it’s not wet.”

Yuuri placed a hand over his mouth, as he had before, somehow deriving a drop of comfort from the gesture. “OK, Victor – ”

Victor trailed the ends of his toes up and down, then poked them a couple of centimeters inside.

 _“Victor – ”_ Yuuri said, taking a step forward, his eyes flying open wide.

“I’m fine – it’s OK,” Victor said as he put his foot back down on the ground, wiggling his toes. “I’m not hurt. It didn’t feel much like anything. It’s hard to say…”

“All right. Maybe we ought to finish here for now,” Yuuri said, sighing in relief.

Victor looked at the portal, and it quickly shrank and winked out of existence with a flash of blue. “I need time to think more about experiments to try, anyway. We may be at the limit of what throwing things in will teach us.”

“Yeah, OK, I’ll think too. But I’m not about to try going in there.”

“Me either.”

The shouldered their backpacks. “I’ll cook tonight,” Yuuri said.

“Or we could try a restaurant in Sonora. We haven’t been to one yet. Unless you count the coffee shop.”

Yuuri considered. “I don’t know…maybe.”

“And when we get back to the house after that, there’s something else you could do.”

“Oh?”

“Check me all over for injuries,” Victor said, his voice low and inviting. “Just in case I got some here that I didn’t notice.”

A grin crossed Yuuri’s face, and he flashed him a heated look as they walked. “Only if you do the same for me.”

“My pleasure, _solnyshko_ ,” Victor replied with hooded eyes.


	59. Chapter 59

The mail was delivered by hand late one Saturday morning, while Yuuri and Victor were watching a Victorian murder mystery on the Cloud. Yuuri got up to answer the door, thanked the postman – who said he hadn’t had anything to deliver to anyone for a week, so it was no problem – and sat back down on the sofa next to Victor with the letter he’d been given. “Afe Babalola University, Nigeria?” he said, peering at the return address. “Was this one of the places you wrote to?”

Victor paused the video and put the laptop on a nearby table. “Yes – what do they say?”

Yuuri tore the letter open and scanned the piece of paper inside. “Dear Dr. Nikiforov, thank you for your inquiry, it is an honor, etcetera, etcetera…but unfortunately we do not have the funding for extra posts at this time. We will bear in mind the interest you have expressed…” He shook his head and sighed. “Ah, it says at the end that this person knows about another university that’s looking to start a department of neuroscience. Um…the University of Bamako in Mali.”

Victor’s brow wrinkled and he picked the laptop up and began typing. “They don’t even have a Cloud presence, from the look of it. And…” He typed some more. “The average maximum temperature throughout the year is between thirty and forty Celsius. I’m willing to put up with a lot, but…”

“Jesus, are we this desperate?”

“I guess if you grew up in that kind of climate, you’d be used to it. Being from St. Petersburg? Not so much. But I’m more concerned about possibly trying to open a neuroscience department at a university that isn’t well known, and almost certainly not very well funded.” He sat back and sank his chin into a hand.

“There’s the potential that we could be found by the Institute, too, if they got wind of a prestigious scientist like you going somewhere like that. We’d be better off slotting into some big organization, maybe, where we could do research, even under aliases if we needed to.”

Victor sat silently and frowned. Then he said, “Places like that are all in countries with chips.”

“We never expected this to be easy,” Yuuri murmured, stuffing the paper back in the envelope, which he placed on the table. “Have you heard back from any of the other places you wrote to yet?”

“No.” He put his laptop back down.

“You wrote to them in December, didn’t you? It’s February now. I don’t know if that means no one else is interested in writing back, or the mail service is just bad. I guess not many people use it nowadays.”

Yuuri was surprised to see a tear slide down his cheek. Victor brushed it away with a sniffle. “Sorry, Yuuri. I…just get discouraged sometimes.”

“Yeah, me too.” Victor gave a small sob, and Yuuri took him in his arms. “Vitenka,” he said, kissing his cheek, “we’ll find a way. It’ll work out somehow. We just need to try to be patient.”

Victor didn’t reply, but he wrapped his arms around Yuuri, and for once he was the one who buried his face in the crook of his neck. They sat like that for some time, Yuuri caressing his back and kissing his hair. Holding each other like this felt like it could smooth out the edges of any kind of pain, even if it couldn’t eliminate the source.

“Hey,” Yuuri murmured in his ear, “do you want to watch the rest of _Murder Below Stairs_? We can bet on who we think the killer is.”

“Bet?” Victor said dispassionately against his neck. But then he seemed to warm to the subject. “Hmm. Like…the loser has to wash the dishes every day for a week?”

“Yeah, sure,” Yuuri said with a little smile.

“OK. It was the rogue younger brother of the man of the house. I can’t remember his name.”

“I say the butler did it.”

Victor chuckled and snuggled against him. “It doesn’t matter. I like doing the dishes for you anyway. Your cooking’s so lovely.”

“So are you,” Yuuri said, placing a soft kiss on his temple.

“Yuranya, _ya lyublyu tyebya_.”

“ _Aishiteru_. Come on then, let’s find out who’s right. And I have a better idea – the winner gets bathed indulgently by the loser.”

Victor’s eyes opened wider, and he sat up to grab his laptop. “That’s a bet that’s impossible to lose,” he said, sounding more cheerful. “You’re on.”

***

Neither of them was correct, but it didn’t stop Victor from enthusiastically volunteering to give Yuuri a bath. He loved the way he was blossoming sexually, losing more of his self-consciousness all the time, though he was still always prone to those endearing pink cheeks. Yuuri was growing bolder in expressing what he wanted, too. Victor had happily fulfilled one fantasy he’d told him about by making sure he got home first from work, cooked dinner, and then greeted him when he came through the door, wearing the apron and nothing else. Yuuri had obviously been delighted, though a little overcome at the same time, and Victor had guided things from there, which was absolutely fine with him; and what fun they’d had. Dinner hadn’t been forgotten, either; he’d popped it into the oven to keep warm while they were busy.

He loved sharing the house with Yuuri, too. Because of how things had ended with Mikhail, he’d been worried that they would hit bumps in the road, but no major ones had materialized yet. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were effectively exiled from career, family and friends, he would’ve said he was the happiest he’d ever been. It was a strange, disquieting mixture. He hadn’t meant to let his emotions spill over when the letter from the Nigerian university came; he knew it was the last thing Yuuri needed, because he was troubled by the same situation. And in the past he might have succeeded in keeping a lid on it. There had just been something about the fact that they were together on the sofa, and it was _Yuuri_ , that had made him decide to open up and lean on him like that. He suspected Yuuri didn’t know how seldom he’d ever done it with anybody in his life.

He had, however, reined in his excitement about what he’d been able to achieve with the phase-shifting, having sensed that Yuuri was frustrated with his own attempts to do it to laser-gun fire. In what Victor had come to understand as typical Yuuri-fashion, he’d decided to dedicate his time and effort to the task until he succeeded, taking his laser gun out to the forest every day for a week. Finally he’d returned one evening and announced without fanfare that he seemed to be able to phase-shift the gunfire so that it passed through any medium; Victor had gone out with him the day after so that he could show him.

“You worked so hard on this,” Victor had said after he’d watched Yuuri shoot the laser beam into a thick tree. It made an incandescent blue streak through the fading light of the day, unhindered by the wood. “I’m so proud of you.” He gave Yuuri a tight hug.

“Just to get to where you were at from the start.”

Victor pulled away and looked at him. “There are things you can do that I can’t. All those people who contact you, who you help. And you’re the one who worked out how to disable guns and gadgets, and had the idea about blocking people’s chips. Remember the day we caused chaos in Sonora by doing that?”

Yuuri laughed. “I guess sometimes I forget about that, since no one has a chip here at the commune.”

“And we don’t have to explode security cameras anymore. But you’re still amazing at those things, and you’ve got a lot more experience than me.”

“OK, you’ve convinced me. I’m not bad myself. Though when I lose my concentration, like when I’m being chased by an agent, I’m useless.”

“I have the same problem. I think it’s probably natural.”

“You know,” Yuuri said, pocketing his gun, “we’ve never tried doing what I used to do with Rahul. Having long conversations without saying a word out loud.”

“Wasn’t that because you didn’t speak the same language?”

“Well, yeah. And it did make things hard sometimes. You can’t send specific words for people’s names, or places, and so on. But in a lot of ways it goes _beyond_ language – ”

“Oh I know.”

“So do you think it’d be fun to do more of it?”

“Maybe. Yes…in a way.”

“In a way?” Yuuri looked at him curiously.

“Well, what if I send things that I don’t mean to?”

“That already happens to us both sometimes,” Yuuri said with a chuckle as he started walking. He’d taken a flashlight out of his backpack to guide them through the deepening twilight in the woods until they were back at the commune.

“Maybe it’d happen more.” Victor wasn’t sure how safe it would ever be to let anyone in deep… _too_ deep. If it ended up destroying what he and Yuuri had together, just for the sake of playing with their ESP…He tried to make light of it to get the point across. “For example, what if you put on a shirt that I thought didn’t suit you at all?”

“What?”

“Well, what if the color looked horrible on you? And you caught me thinking something like, _Ugh, that looks awful, why are you wearing that?_ I mean, there’s a reason why people don’t say these things. They don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.”

“Yeah, white lies. But you’d never think anything like that, would you?”

“Of course not,” Victor lied.

“I get your point. It’s up to you. I guess we already communicate that way sometimes, especially if other people are around.”

“Well…I could try doing it more often. Like being bilingual, switching from one to the other during a conversation.”

“Is that what you do when you’re with another Russian?”

Victor considered. “Hm, well, it depends. Usually when the concept can be better expressed in English, that’s what we use. Though because it’s so rare to meet another Russian here, we usually talk in our first language.”

“ESP as a second language,” Yuuri mused.

“I think I could get used to that.” _[I’m looking forward to getting back to the bright house and sitting next to the fire, with you.]_

He heard Yuuri huff a little laugh next to him in the darkening shadows. _[I’d love to be there with you, too.]_ Though what he sent was the sketches of an image – the fire crackling in front of him as he curled up on the sofa. His imagining of what his senses would perceive – the cheerful, welcoming lights in the house and the dancing flames in the hearth after their trip out in the dark of night. The aroma of woodsmoke. The warmth of Victor’s body wrapped around him…oh, that was nice. And emotions, too – a longing for this, like there was nothing on earth he wanted more. Comfort and safety. Victor was in no doubt that this was genuine, straight from Yuuri’s heart. There was no room for white lies, hedging for the sake of politeness, concealing true intent. There was a _knowing_ underneath it all that simply said this was so. And yet it came at him so quickly, like an exploding firework; it had its impact, while the afterglow was there to contemplate and savor. This wasn’t new to Victor; it was the nature of communicating via ESP. It was what made it special, and intimate…and even a little frightening at times.

 _[I want chocolate,]_ Victor sent. Well, he did. It didn’t _have_ to be intimate all the time.

Yuuri laughed.

***

As their weekly area meeting came to a close a few nights later, where they’d enjoyed drinks and snacks in a large outside gathering place with Sheila, Sumayya, Carla and the other local residents, Yuuri sent Victor a silent request that they stay after the others had gone. They were seated on cushions on a stone bench that circled the sunken patio-style enclosure, with gray stone slabs for a floor and tall street lights standing near the short stairs that formed the entrance. In the middle of the enclosure was a fire pit that continued to radiate generous warmth into the night. A pile of embers glowed white and orange, and flames flickered at the top, though they had been allowed to burn down as the meeting neared its end. Victor watched the reflections from the fire play over Yuuri’s face as he leaned forward, staring into its heart. In the house, he sometimes sat on the sofa doing the same thing, mesmerized by the crackling logs and dancing light like other people might be entertained by a show on the Cloud.

“You wanted to stay a while,” Victor said.

Yuuri reached his hands toward the fire, warming his palms. It was a chilly evening, though their jackets and the fire pit made it pleasant enough to sit outside. “It’s just nice, don’t you think? Relaxing. Once everyone’s gone, you can just…be cozy, and listen to the sounds.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Victor until now, and he tuned into what his ears were picking up. Soft hisses and pops from the fire pit. A gentle breeze soughing through the tree branches fringing the gathering area. Rustling in the nearby bushes; it was often impossible to discern the cause, but Victor knew that plenty of varieties of little furry brown animals lived here. Occasionally someone walked by on the main path further away.

“We haven’t been outside much, have we?” Yuuri continued. “Not just to sit like this. I guess with the cold nights, I haven’t wanted to.” _[I’ve spent so much of my life inside buildings. I don’t even know if the moon’s supposed to be out tonight, or what the constellations are overhead, or if there are planets to see. Do bats come out at this time of year? Isn’t it silly that I’m ignorant of such basic things?]_

Yuuri continued to stare ahead into the fire, his bangs lifting gently when the breeze blew. Victor slipped an arm around his waist. _[I feel the same.]_

 _[If I could live in a place like this in Boston, I’d be happy. If you were there, too.]_ He leaned into him, and Victor was momentarily distracted by his warm presence, the firelight glow on his face, his quiet even breaths, so alive, so wonderful, so desirable. But no…this was not exactly an acceptable venue for making out. He gave Yuuri’s waist a squeeze.

“Wherever you are feels like home to me,” he said.

Yuuri looked at him with wide eyes, then circled a hand around to cup the back of his head and pulled him in for a long kiss. Whatever Victor had decided about this being an inappropriate venue vanished from his mind.

Breaking away, Yuuri grinned, his eyes sparkling. “That’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”    

“Sweeter than… _siteru wo…_ ” Yuuri’s mouth quirked at the corners. “Oh no, what was it…? _Ushukishe iru._ ”

“ _Utsukushii me wo shiteiru._ And you do have beautiful eyes.”

“ _I_ was saying that to _you._ Or…” He sang softly, “I’ll be there, with a love that will shelter you…”

Yuuri hugged him, resting his head against his neck. “Oh Victor,” he whispered.

What Victor wished he could say that moment was that he wanted to be there for him always; that he wanted to… _oh bozhe,_ he did. He wanted to marry him. To know that they were promised to each other, and that Yuuri wouldn’t leave him again. Despite the fact that he’d already said he wouldn’t. But they were sitting here in a public area, at night, and…it was too soon, surely. People didn’t normally rush into these things. They were already living together; why risk troubling waters that seemed to be running so smoothly? He was being silly, he told himself.

“Wouldn’t it be good if we could have a place like this in Boston, though?” Yuuri said as he snuggled against him. “Best of both worlds. A settlement out in nature instead of a city, where people are nice to each other and work together. And our old jobs back.”

Victor felt a prickle in his heart, and an ache.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, sitting up and smoothing his hair. “Trust me to say the wrong thing. I know it can’t happen. I keep telling myself I’m not going to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming. It can keep hopes alive.”

Yuuri sighed and gazed into the fire again. Then he seemed to have a sudden thought, and looked at Victor. “Would you still like to research ESP together, if we could?”

“I…” Victor considered his response. “Yuuri, I was going to tell you…Last time Carla was with me in the workshop, she said she hadn’t heard any positive news from her contacts, though she had to be careful who she asked and what she said.”

“I guess that’s no surprise.”

“I just don’t see how – ”

Yuuri turned to him. “I know. But…let’s say we _could_ find a way. Remember when you first came to MIT? How enthusiastic we both were, and full of ideas? And not that long ago, in the forest, when we were trying things with the portal? _Would_ you research it, if you could?”

Victor gave Yuuri a little smile. “Of course. Like I said in the hotel in…Silverado, was it? I’d be happy to be partners with you, doing that. I really wish we could. Apart from examining the physical manifestations, we’d be pretty good at looking at what’s going on with our own brains, don’t you think? I’ve never studied a hologram of my own brain before…”

Yuuri blinked. “You just reminded me of something. It feels like such a long time ago now. One of our research subjects was an old Narragansett woman named Onawa.”

“I remember reading your notes about her.”

“There’s a lot I didn’t put in them. We had a silent ESP conversation.”

Victor’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“The shamans were pretty disdainful about what we were doing.” He rubbed his chin. “Maybe that’s not the right word. It’s more like…they didn’t see the point in it. Onawa said we were going about things the wrong way.”

“Did she?” Victor raised an eyebrow.

“She also said everything’s conscious, and that consciousness is linked.”

Victor sat back and thought about this. “Sounds like the sort of thing a shaman would say.”

“Do you think she might have a point, though?”

Victor’s gaze strayed to the fire. “I…don’t know. I suppose I’d say it was more of a philosophical question than a scientific one.”

“Maybe it _is_ scientific. Maybe it’s really good science, and we just haven’t realized it.”

Victor fought the inclination to dismiss what Yuuri was saying as…what was the term he’d said self-styled skeptics used? _Woo._ It was an ingrained habit from many years of working as a scientist that hadn’t yet been superseded by the fact that he’d _experienced_ woo firsthand, and could _perform_ woo that would make those skeptics jump out of their skins. He smiled at the thought. “Maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “Though I’m not sure I’m following you one hundred percent.”

Yuuri rubbed his chin again. “We’ve never talked about this before. Not in any detail. What Onawa said about consciousness being linked…maybe it’s true, and maybe there’s science behind it that we don’t understand. Maybe things we call spiritual now are underpinned by physical laws that haven’t even been discovered yet.”

Victor listened to the quiet clinking sounds of the hot glowing embers in the fire. “That’s easily said,” he commented eventually. “Though I’d have to say it must be true, because there aren’t any known laws that describe what you and I can do. The portals, for instance.”

Yuuri nodded. “I’d like to know how the ESP’s awakened, too.”

“We both have a theory about that,” Victor said with a smirk. He could just discern Yuuri’s cheeks pinking against the glow of the fire.

“Uh, well I meant not just as individuals, but human beings in general. Maybe there’s been a gradual progression of people getting better at it, or getting stronger, throughout history. I’m not aware of people being on record as having some of the abilities you and I do, or other people I’ve met. But there are documented phenomena. Remote viewers who visualized the interiors of bases during the Cold War in the 1960s; some of their drawings are really close to what was actually there. Psychics who help police locate bodies. Rupert Sheldrake’s studies. He designed rigorous scientific experiments and invited well-known skeptics to watch and even participate. The sense of being stared at, and pets who know their owners are coming home.”

“The sense of being stared at?”

Yuuri laughed. “You know, the feeling that you’re being watched.”

“He did scientific studies on that?”

“I think he did a good job of showing it’s possible, and yeah, I think he got some interesting results. Same with the pets who knew when their owners were coming home. He found every way he could to eliminate ordinary possibilities. Like Sherlock Holmes said, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how  _improbable_ , must be the truth.’ There’s a lot on the Cloud about it. You might like it.”

“Come to think of it, Makkachin’s always been like that,” Victor mused. Then he looked back at Yuuri. “How come you’ve never mentioned these things to me before? You know a lot about them.”

Yuuri shrugged. “Would you have listened?”

“I…um, maybe not,” Victor admitted. “Not before. But now? Sure.”

Yuuri leaned back, looking pleased and maybe a little amused. “There’s nothing like personal experience to change someone’s mind about something. But if you tried to tell someone you had ESP, and couldn’t prove to them that you did – and you knew you were telling the truth, but they didn’t believe you…”

“All right,” Victor said, “I know where this is going. And I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s that habit a lot of scientists have of rejecting anecdotal evidence as…unworthy of consideration. Well, we’ve talked about that before. Maybe you can see how frustrating it is.”

“I know.”

“But why there seem to be more people like us around now, I’m not sure. _Are_ there, though, or is that just how it seems to me? Onawa said everyone’s capable of ESP, but they can’t all access it.” He wrinkled his brow. “Yeah, _that’s_ what she said – sometimes a key just fits a lock. I wonder why she put it that way. A key fits a lock…”

Victor was enjoying watching how Yuuri’s mind worked. It didn’t _work_ , he decided; it _danced_. “Maybe it _is_ possible for one person to awaken another,” he offered.

“So are we going to try doing that the way I did it with you?” Yuuri said with a crooked smile, leaning back with his legs stretched toward the fire and folding his arms behind his head. Victor felt a sudden urge to ravish him. If he tried, he wondered if Yuuri would ravish him back. Then he told himself to stop thinking with his dick. It was a frequent occurrence where Yuuri was concerned.

“I thought we said we couldn’t be sure that was what happened. And no,” he added, “I don’t think I’d want to try that with anyone else. There must be other ways.” He gave Yuuri a knowing grin and added in a low voice, “Though…if you ever want to reenact what you did in that dream…I won’t stop you.”  

Yuuri blew out a breath, suddenly looking flustered, and Victor regretted the fact that they were in a public place.

“I…what was I talking about?” Yuuri said. “Shit,” he laughed, “you’re so fucking distracting, Victor.”

Victor smiled back, delighted with the effect he’d had. But he sensed Yuuri wanted to carry on with the conversation, so steering it back on course was the polite thing to do, he decided. “All right, then. I liked what you said about consciousness being linked. You gave examples of that. A lot of what we do with the ESP is an example of it, too. So maybe you’re onto something there.”

The flustered look dropped away, and Victor could see that Yuuri’s logical brain was back online. “It’s an old idea, not mine at all. The new thing would be trying to study it scientifically. Though even that isn’t new…”

“Point taken.”

“OK.” He stared back into the fire. “Well, what we’re doing in essence is looking beyond the predominant paradigm of materialist/reductionist ideologies in neuroscience – ”

“I love it when you talk technical, Doctor.” Yuuri flashed an annoyed look at him that perhaps wasn’t completely fake. “Sorry.”

“I’m being serious, Victor.”

“I know. And I’m following you. You’re saying that for a long time, scientists have approached their work with the assumption that consciousness is purely a function of the brain; and if we can figure out how that happens, we’ll understand why we live under the illusion that we’re something more than a collection of cells.”

Yuuri looked surprised, though he shouldn’t, Victor thought. The fact that he’d worked from a version of this assumption himself for many years didn’t mean he’d never considered alternatives. Those alternatives were what had made it possible for him to accept the existence of his ESP without the battle he’d been fighting within himself escalating even further.

“Yeah…that’s exactly right. A lot of people admit to believing in something more…spiritual than that. I don’t know what other word to use for it, but there’s the problem again – _spiritual_ and _scientific_ have been seen as totally separate things for hundreds of years. I mean, I know there were good reasons for why that happened, with all the superstitions and misconceptions that were around; but now we’re stuck in a situation where scientists invalidate people’s experiences because they don’t fit with their beliefs about how these things can’t be possible. Telepathy, precognition, near-death experiences, what we call ESP – everything we tend to put into the category of the paranormal. Instead of saying it’s something other than normal, or it’s spiritual, we could be getting somewhere if we start considering the idea of the nonlocal mind. The sort of thing scientists like Sheldrake have investigated. I was interested in it myself years back, which was why I thought about studying quantum mechanics. We know quantum entanglement is real, for example, but are we any closer to understanding how it works?”

“Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance,’ ” Victor put in with a smile. “A measurement of one entangled particle immediately influences the other, regardless of the distance between them.”

Yuuri nodded. “So we make use of that property in tech, even though we don’t know why it happens. Just like we still don’t know how a bunch of spinning atoms of silicon, oxygen, potassium and so on can form the physical presence of the granite bench we’re sitting on. Only, we’re not technically even sitting on it. We’re experiencing the electromagnetic repulsion between our asses and the bench’s electrons.”

An idea struck Victor. “I wonder if we’ve been altering that somehow when we do the phase-shifting.”

Now Yuuri was beaming at him. “See?” he said quietly. “Nothing mystical at all. Very scientific, in fact. So maybe other so-called paranormal phenomena can be looked at from that kind of angle, too. You could consider lots of ideas and dream up experiments to try them out. Based on the premise that consciousness is more than some illusion produced by the brain, which isn’t a revolutionary idea to most lay people. Maybe it’s even _outside_ the brain, at least partially. Some people have suggested the brain’s only a receiver, like a radio antenna. Damage the receiver, and you won’t pick up the signal – but that’s different from the receiver and the signal being the same thing.”

“Oh Yuuri…we need to be in a lab, testing these things out,” Victor said wistfully. “I’ve always loved your creativity and enthusiasm. There’s so much you could do; that we could do together. You’ve got me wanting to pull an all-nighter to just to discover something. Like what the hell those portals are – how they work, what’s inside of them.”

Yuuri crossed his feet, which were basking near the fire, and gave him a playful look. “So how would you investigate? Go on, tell me – what would you do?”

“I…haven’t really thought about it. But…you know, I’d be tempted to treat a portal like a new planet. Send a rover into it, like the one Phichit’s been working on. Maybe after that, someone in a spacesuit with a tether attached to them. I’d go.” When Yuuri began to reply, he added, “And there’s no point telling me not to, because it’s only a hypothetical situation anyway.”

Yuuri pressed his lips together, and Victor didn’t need ESP to read, _You’re stubborn._

“Maybe one day it won’t be hypothetical.” Yuuri sat in silence for a moment, then looked at his watch and sighed. “I could sit here all night and talk about this stuff, but I guess we’re not going to figure out the nature of existence in one conversation, and I’ve got a ballgame tomorrow. I should probably get some rest.”

Victor had to perform some mental gymnastics to shift his thoughts to such a different track, but he managed it. He’d been waiting for the chance to see Yuuri in action on the ballfield, and wondered if it would be as sexy as he’d imagined. Even if Yuuri was standing and doing little or nothing, he’d seen his uniform, and…well. It looked good on him. “I’m not busy tomorrow afternoon. Could I come watch? You’ve been using the weights for a while. I bet you’re strong enough to throw the ball wherever you need to.”

Yuuri straightened up on the bench and folded his arms across his chest. “I…I’d like that, but…I don’t know. I might still be prone to performance anxiety; I haven’t been practicing long.”

Victor snickered. “As if _you_ suffer from _that_.”

“Maybe I did, at first,” Yuuri answered coyly.

“I think you have nothing to worry about, _Zvezda moya._ ”

Yuuri’s face fell. “What if I strike out or something? I don’t think I’d want you to see that. It’d be embarrassing.”

“Remind me what that means.”

Yuuri huffed. “It isn’t good.”

“All right, I admit I’m being facetious; I’ve watched enough games with you to understand most of what’s happening, I think. But like I’ve always said, there’s nothing you need to feel embarrassed about with me.” He gave him a soft smile. “If you strike out or anything else like that…I promise I’ll make you feel better afterward.”

Yuuri suddenly brightened, and then he gave Victor a heated look. “It’d be worth it just for that. OK. Maybe I’ll end up hitting a home run just for you.”

“I’ll be your biggest fan,” Victor laughed. Then he said soberly, meeting those brown eyes dancing in the firelight, “Though I already am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rupert Sheldrake, and his research Yuuri alludes to here, is real! Check out his website – for more info on these studies and others, click on the “Research” link at the top of the page.
> 
> [Rupert Sheldrake’s website](https://www.sheldrake.org)
> 
> [“The ‘heretic’ at odds with scientific dogma”](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/05/rupert-sheldrake-interview-science-delusion)
> 
> And for more information/resources on “skeptical” versus “dogmatic” science (mainly podcasts and transcripts): [Skeptiko: Science at the Tipping Point](http://skeptiko.com)


	60. Chapter 60

Yuuri wondered, not for the first time, if this was such a good idea after all. As the home team, they were fielding at the top of the first inning. He’d never minded the small crowd of spectators that tended to gather to watch them play, but now there was one person in particular among them who Yuuri couldn’t get out of his mind. Despite what they’d discussed the night before, he kept visualizing horribly embarrassing things he might accidentally do in front of him. He was experiencing an internal tug of war between this and a ridiculous juvenile desire to show off; to make some spectacular play, or hit the ball out of the park when it was his turn to bat. And yet he _wanted_ Victor to be there, and appreciated the fact that he was willing to spend an afternoon sitting there to support him. Somehow he had to find a way to settle down and just get on with what he was there to do.

He gave his glove a few flexes. The leather was new and stiff, but he’d been breaking it in. It felt strange wearing a uniform, too. The team wasn’t flush enough with cash to provide separate ones for home and away, but the one they had still felt more professional than he had any right to wear, an off-white muddy color with navy-blue trim and “Elkhorn” in cursive across the front. He had a matching blue hat and calf-length socks, and wore his own tennis shoes. The visiting team, from another commune, were striking in scarlet and white.

_[I’m so excited to see this! You’ll do great!]_

Yuuri smiled as he played with his glove. _[Thank you.]_

When the game started, he forced himself to drag his thoughts away from Victor and focus on what was happening. There wasn’t a great deal of action coming his way, however; not until he was able to make the third out by stopping a ground ball near the base and spinning to throw it to first. The ball bounced on its way, which didn’t exactly make for a clean play, but it was accurate enough for Maria at first base to catch it in time. When he trotted off the field, he could almost feel Victor’s eyes on him.

_[That was fantastic!]_

Yuuri laughed and shook his head. No, it wasn’t. But it was sweet of him to think so. Yuuri sent the feeling to him and half-hoped there wouldn’t be a comment like this every time he did something.

The first few innings went by quickly, with barely a hit to either side; unfortunately, Yuuri could count himself among the unsuccessful batters, though he still received a _[Good try]_ from Victor. Then things got a little more interesting as one starting pitcher and then the other flagged, and were replaced by relief pitchers. Yuuri caught a line drive, and on another occasion made an out at third when there were people on first and second, though he wasn’t quick enough getting the ball to second for a double play. He also hit two singles, and was stranded on base both times without scoring, which would put his batting average up but wasn’t much to boast about, he thought. Victor’s presence did make him more reckless than usual, however, and he managed to steal second, even though the base coach hadn’t directed him to do so. The pitcher hadn’t seemed to expect it, which helped, and it was a close call. When he stood and dusted himself off, he spotted Victor in the crowd and met his eyes.

 _[Showing off for your boyfriend?]_ Victor sent as he smiled and waved.

Yuuri couldn’t help but smile back. _[Naturally.]_

Elkhorn ended up winning 6-4. Yuuri hadn’t had a bad game, though he couldn’t help but wish he’d been able to make his part in it more heroic. It had been someone else who’d hit the home run with two other people on base. But they were a team, as the coaches often reminded them, rather than individuals out for glory. Even when there was a handsome man to try to impress. He said goodbye to his teammates and met Victor near the stands; he’d been minding their backpacks, and they shouldered them, Yuuri having tucked his hat inside his. It was warm enough today for jackets to be unnecessary. The sun shone high and clear in a blue sky.

“That was a fun game,” Victor said. “I loved watching you.”

Yuuri laughed. “The whole time I was standing near third base doing nothing, and sitting on the bench doing nothing while I was waiting my turn to bat, you mean.”

“I loved watching you then, too.”

Yuuri tilted his head up and kissed his cheek. “Flatterer. I guess we’d better head back.”

On their way, they paused on the bridge over the Elkhorn River to gaze at the ducks and fish. There were a couple of canal boats against the shore, with smoke coming out of little stacks. Yuuri found Victor’s hand and squeezed it. “Thanks for coming today. It was really nice having you there. And all those thoughts you sent me.” He smiled. “You’re the best cheerleader anyone could have.”

Victor squeezed back. “My pleasure, _Zvezda moya_. And I mean it. You look sexy throwing the ball like that. And swinging the bat.” He appeared to want to say more, but there were people crossing the bridge behind them. Silently, he hooded his eyes and began sending thoughts and images, and Yuuri got the strange sense he sometimes did of seeing himself from another person’s point of view. Of a consciousness he knew well, watching him make a play on the ballfield; lingering on flexing arm muscles, and a smoothly coordinated body under the well-fitting fabric of the uniform. Did he really look like that? And the same again when he was batting. Eyes raking from top to toe, appreciating…the determined look on his face, of all things. Down his arms…Yuuri had never realized how much Victor liked them. Further still, in unabashed admiration of…

Yuuri’s cheeks flamed. _“Victor,”_ he hissed in mock outrage. If he’d known Victor had been thinking those things, he would no doubt have struck out, probably only remembering to swing the bat by the time the ball landed in the catcher’s glove.

The corners of Victor’s mouth twitched, but he wasn’t finished. Yuuri was sent a feeling of heat gathering in his abdomen, and a longing for something, someone, who was at a distance and could not be touched. With a start, he realized this was how he used to feel about his idols – Freddie, and then…well, Victor. Before he knew him. _That_ was how Victor felt, watching him on the ballfield? He couldn’t believe it. But then he allowed himself to start to melt into it, and…the knowledge that the longing could be reciprocated turned the whole experience into an exquisite kind of tease. Victor had been waiting to get him alone, someplace private. Where Yuuri would give him kisses full of love and urgency. Touch him…run his hands all over him. Yuuri gasped, his pulse racing, a flame leaping inside of him.

“I’m sorry,” Victor whispered. His face was flushed. “I think I got a little carried away. I told you I enjoyed watching you.”  

Yuuri took in the sight of him, in tan slacks with a brown leather belt, and a pink short-sleeved T-shirt that had a few buttons around the collar which were undone, so that the fabric gapped open at his neck. Those fine silken bangs hanging over crystal-blue eyes. Rosy lips so temptingly near. It didn’t seem to matter how long they’d been together or what they’d already done; Yuuri never stopped wanting him. He sent a wave of desire into him and watched his eyes widen and his mouth fall open.

“Yuuri…” he said hoarsely. It sounded almost like a plea.

“Home. Now.”

They walked the remaining distance in silence, but Yuuri felt the anticipation between them like electricity in the air. Although it wasn’t far to go, every step was a frustration when all he wanted to do was take Victor in his arms. Finally at the wooden door, he removed the key from his backpack, his fingers trembling slightly, and let them in, locking the door again behind them.

They dropped their backpacks on the floor. Yuuri caught a glimpse of Victor’s expression, curious and expectant, before he swiftly closed the distance between them, pressing Victor against the wall. Their mouths clashed together, teeth clacking though not painfully, and then their tongues touched and circled and probed while their hands roved, fingers grasping. Yuuri had a fleeting thought about using more ESP, but at times like this it could be difficult to concentrate. They didn’t need to stoke more desire in each other as it was. It was shutting his brain down, driving him with an instinct that little by little, thanks to Victor’s trust and encouragement, he was learning not to fear. He grinded his hips, and Victor reciprocated with a gasp.

“Is this what you want…” Yuuri breathed between kisses. His hand settled against the bulge in Victor’s slacks and palmed it firmly. “…Vitenka? Is this what you wished I could do to you while I was out there on the baseball field?”

Victor moaned into his mouth, bucking against his hand. Yuuri was filled with the urge to take him, take him _now._ It had never been so strong before, and it was still a little disconcerting. He didn’t want to hurt Victor. Wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea of losing control to that degree. But he also knew that if he did something Victor didn’t like, he’d communicate it to him, and change what they were doing. That gave him the courage he needed.

“Stay here,” he said, brushing a finger across Victor’s lips. He remained with his back to the wall while Yuuri trotted over to the bed, grabbing a bottle of lube from the nearby cupboard. He’d been wondering how they might be able to make this position work – he would need more height – and so he’d snuck a rectangular block of wood home from the house-building site one day when Victor wasn’t there and stashed it under the bed. Why he seemed to have a need for secrecy, he wasn’t sure; maybe just because this seemed a little brazen, and he hadn’t known if he could go through with it. Anyway, Victor liked surprises. He felt underneath the bed and pulled the piece of wood out now and returned to Victor, who’d been watching him with wide eyes.

Yuuri put the items he was carrying on the floor, knowing it was probably not the most romantic thing to see, however necessary they both were. “Trust me,” he said, stepping close to Victor again so that their bodies were touching. He cupped his cheek, then came in for a kiss but stopped just short, lips hovering. “Show me what you’d like to do with me while I’m in this uniform.”

“What _wouldn’t_ I like to do,” Victor whispered in a shaky voice, sliding his arms behind him. His hands cupped Yuuri’s ass and pulled it against him as he kneaded the muscles. Yuuri gasped and closed his eyes, tilting his head back. He gripped Victor’s shoulders and repeated “yes,” matching the rhythm of Victor’s hands as he began to grind against him again.

“Yuranya,” Victor said into his ear, followed by something in Russian.

Yuuri met his lips and they exchanged a wet kiss full of desire. He could come like this, but it wasn’t what he’d planned. The thought of what he’d carried the piece of wood over here for almost took him to the edge, and it spurred him to act. “Turn around,” he said, and Victor allowed himself to be guided until he was facing the wall, braced against it with his palms. Yuuri pressed against his ass, letting him feel how much he wanted this, as he reached around and unbuckled Victor’s belt, the clink of the metal sounding out in the quiet room along with their breaths. Then Yuuri grabbed the tops of Victor’s pants and briefs and yanked them until they were pooled around his ankles. Victor exhaled loudly and Yuuri thought he saw a shudder pass through him.

“Are you OK?” he asked, running a hand lightly over the smooth bare skin veiling taut muscles underneath.

“Yes,” came the instant response. “ _Bozhe moi_ , yes. Please…”

The words sent a pulse of heat through Yuuri. He poured some lube into his hand, put the bottle back down, and began urgently preparing Victor, unable to resist palming himself with his other hand while he listened to the noises escaping Victor’s throat.

“I’m ready,” Victor said, turning his head to look at him, his eyes bright. “Please.”

The way he was begging for it was driving Yuuri to distraction. He stepped around to Victor’s side and gave him a long, deep kiss until they were both whimpering. Then he went back behind him, kicking the piece of wood over to stand on; he thought he’d judged the thickness he needed fairly well. He pulled his own pants and boxers roughly down only as far as they needed to go to be out of the way, then slicked some lube over himself, noticing that Victor had turned his head again to watch, surprise and desire chasing each other across his face.

“Yuuri, god yes, give it to me,” he breathed. “Fuck me hard, baby.”

Yuuri’s cock swelled between his legs. Feeling a sudden wave of pure need, he grabbed Victor’s hips and slid inside him with one movement, drawing more moans from them both. He’d dreamed of doing this one day, but would have been hesitant…and yet Victor had given him permission; had said he _wanted_ it. He began to move and build the pace until his thoughts tumbled away. The room was filled for several minutes with nothing but the rhythmic slapping of skin on skin and noises of pleasure and encouragement. Victor’s fingers were flexing against the wall as if they could dig into it, and his thighs had begun to tremble. Yuuri started to pull Victor’s hips against his cock in time with his thrusts, closing his eyes, throwing his head back, sighs and groans pulling themselves from his throat as his orgasm neared.

As swept away as he felt, though, he wished he could see Victor properly. Look into his eyes. Feel like they were connecting emotionally as well as physically. He slowed and placed his hands on either side of Victor’s chest, caressing up and down over his shirt. “Stand up as straight as you can?” he murmured.

He did, and Yuuri continued to push into him. Then Victor reached an arm up and threaded his fingers into Yuuri’s hair, turning his head back as far as he could, his eyes glazed with desire, mouth slack. Yuuri met him for a sloppy kiss, their tongues tangling.

He was determined to share _something_ , even if it was hard to focus. _[I’m so lucky to have you like this. Feels so good.]_

A quiet minute passed, and Victor moaned against his mouth. Then he sent a broken jumble of feelings. Lingering surprise at what Yuuri had chosen to do. Joy in receiving it. Building pleasure, wave on wave.

 _[Love you,]_ Yuuri sent.

“Yuranya…I love you too,” Victor whispered.

Yuuri wrapped an arm around his chest and held him tight, feeling a hand flutter up to settle on top of his own. Then he reached around with his other one to grasp Victor’s cock. It was rock hard. Victor swore and braced his free hand against the wall again, more cries spilling from his lips as Yuuri stroked him.

“My Vitenka,” Yuuri muttered against his neck. “My Velvet.” He licked a kiss there. “Come for me, baby.” He quickened his rhythm, matching it with his hand on Victor’s cock, and realized he’d tipped himself over the edge, his hips seeking a final few hard thrusts before his body quivered and he cried out. Victor came at the same time, gripping Yuuri’s arm tight and groaning as ropes of white spattered against the wall. Yuuri stroked him through it, then stood slumped against him for a moment. “God, Victor,” he said into his shirt, too overcome to think of anything else to say.

Victor took the hand that had been flat against his chest and pressed kisses to it.  Yuuri made a contented hum. Eventually his softening cock slipped out and he stepped back, taking his shirt off. “Here – ” he started to say, offering it to Victor.

Victor turned around, looking playfully affronted. “Absolutely not. We’re not disrespecting that shirt. It’s your uniform.”

“It can be washed,” Yuuri said with a smile.

Victor looked pained. “We’ll use mine.” He pulled it off and cleaned himself, then gave the wall a quick going-over with it, smirking as he did so, before pulling his pants back up.

Yuuri blushed as he watched him, rearranging his own clothes and thinking about how sexy it had been to watch Victor come like that, and how lewd.

When Victor was done, he stood and tossed the shirt across the room to land roughly near the washing machine. Yuuri stepped forward and caressed his cheek. “We seem to have a habit of having sex and then getting undressed,” he said, huffing a little laugh.

“I haven’t got time to worry about clothes when I’m with you,” Victor said quietly, grinning back. “Anyway, it’s fun.” He caught Yuuri’s lips in a lingering kiss. “Shower together?”

“Sounds nice,” Yuuri said, then kissed him again. “Love you.”  

They took their time, caressing and holding each other under the warm spray without the distraction of urgent desires. Afterward, they dried each other off and slipped under the sheets for a while. Yuuri found he had little to say, content simply to lie together and enjoy the moment. His heart was full, his body floating on a peaceful cloud. He was aware of Victor gently stroking his fingers through his hair. Soon he felt his consciousness drifting, and his eyes closed.

One of Victor’s portals was in front of him, as large as a full-length mirror again, surrounded by grass and trees. The nothingness within it felt like a rip in the fabric of reality, unnatural, alien. He knew on some level that he must be dreaming, but couldn’t pull himself out of it, and couldn’t run away. Then something new happened; something that sent a cold shiver across his skin. A voice from inside, soft as if coming from a long way away, but clear. It belonged to a woman.

 Just before he woke up with a start, he was sure he heard her say, “Look behind you.”          

***

Toward the end of February, the jobs at the tech workshop stacked up, and Yuuri and Victor had been asked if they would spend a morning there making repairs to laptops and other ancient pieces of equipment. Herb, the balding man with salt-and-pepper hair, came and went on his bike throughout the morning, exchanging components in the process. With Victor having been working here for over two months, the piles of metal and wires and cables had grown, but they all seemed to have a kind of order to them; he knew where everything was and how to find what he needed. Yuuri, on the other hand, felt lost, and had to keep interrupting him to ask how to find something, though he didn’t seem to mind.

“Would you like to take a break?” Victor said after they’d been working for a couple of hours. “Thanks for coming to help today. Sometimes there aren’t many repairs to do, and sometimes – ”

“Yeah, I know,” Yuuri said with a smile. “It never rains but it pours, as they say. Anyway, I was curious about what you’d been doing here. I know you bring stuff home to work on, and it’s new tech, not these old clunky bits.”

“Ah, well, there are a few things. You might like them. Let’s get some drinks first, though. I’m ready for a coffee.”

The coffee maker, with all the associated paraphernalia, was hiding in a corner, surrounded by a stack of old motherboards that appeared to be in the process of getting cannibalized for components. Victor pushed them aside, found Yuuri a white mug, took a teabag from his shirt pocket, and dropped it in. “We don’t have herbal tea here, so I brought this from home,” he said.

“That…that was really thoughtful. Thank you.”

Once their drinks were ready, Victor led Yuuri to his own work station at a counter and pulled a drawer open, removing what looked like a brand-new tablet. “Top-secret research,” he said with a smile, tapping at it. “More like brainstorming, I suppose. We all talk about it here and share ideas when we have time.”

“Talk about what?” Yuuri asked, looking at the small screen, which displayed some kind of technological schematic.

“Workable ideas for an external replacement chip, something with the capabilities of the ordinary chip but which doesn’t have to be embedded in the body for it to work. That’s what engineers were on their way to developing before the government stepped in and changed it – ostensibly for the convenience of always having access to it without having to carry it around. Though we know the real reasons, of course. Anyway, it should be theoretically possible to produce. In time, we might even be able to do it here at the workshop, if we had the right resources.”

“Would you be aiming to try to hack into the Cloud with something like that?”

Victor nodded. “Bit better than a decades-old laptop, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Wicked flink,” Yuuri laughed.

“It’s way too soon to say that,” Victor responded with a chuckle, leaning on the counter and sipping his coffee as he scrolled through a few more schematics for Yuuri to look at. “I’ve started to suspect it’s just not possible, in fact. If we were at Columbia or MIT instead, with the materials and tech available there…I think it’d be a different story. There’s no harm in trying, though. Makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.”

“Quantum computing is a possibility, though I don’t know a lot about it. Artificial synapses – now that’s interesting. Potentially dangerous too, though, if you think about the consequences for AI, with intelligence that’s modeled on the biological brain.”

“I think we have enough ideas between us to feed research for the rest of our lives,” Yuuri said, cupping his mug and feeling the wistful tug of his old job and all the possibilities it offered. “These are some great ones, Victor.”

“Well like I said, I don’t know if they’ll ever get off the ground. The biggest challenge of all is getting direct anonymous access to the Cloud. It’d have to be through a connection to the dark Cloud that makes use of millions of relays and sophisticated encryption to disguise location usage.”

“That sounds like a big job.”

“It could take years. And in the meantime, the tech for the chip wouldn’t be standing still; they’d be developing that, too.” He shook his head and took another sip of coffee. “I like to think I’m good at what I do. But this is maybe more of a dream than anything I could ever make real.”

Yuuri stroked Victor’s arm and drank his tea, unsure of what to say. Unfortunately, he thought he might have a point.

 _“But.”_ Victor held up a finger and raised an eyebrow. “There’s something else a little more concrete that I wanted you to see. I was going to bring it home soon, but since you’re here…” He pulled out a drawer underneath the counter and removed a metallic silver gadget the size of a remote control for an old-fashioned 2D television, though instead of being covered with buttons, there was a single screen. “The ‘on’ switch.” He pressed a button on the top. “Tiny digital pens.” Pulling a small panel off an area at the back, he removed something about the size of a needle, though thicker, with a rounded edge. “It’s clumsy, having to touch and type like this on a screen. Everything’s built for the chip BCI interface nowadays, but this needs to be able to function without that.”

“What _is_ it?”

“My latest invention. This is what I’ve been working on in my spare time, here and at home. I didn’t want you to know until I could be fairly certain it works.”

“Victor. _Tell_ me,” Yuuri insisted with a smile. “Is it…a portable brainwave scanner?”

“No.”

“A music player?”

Victor’s eyes narrowed, though he looked amused. “No. But now that you mention it, something like that would be handy.”

“It makes the calories in food disappear, so you can eat as much chocolate Spartak cake as you want and not gain any weight.”

“Yuuri.” His mouth quirked.

“I’ve got it – it’s a sonic shaver. Vibrates your whiskers off, eliminating the need for a razor.”

Victor stared, apparently taken aback. “You know, you’re not far off with that.”

“You’re kidding,” Yuuri laughed.

“Well, yes and no. It’s a sonic device, though that’s not what it does.” He flashed Yuuri a grin. “It destroys foreign objects in the brain.”

Yuuri’s jaw dropped. “Like…like the chip?”

He nodded, clearly enjoying Yuuri’s reaction. “Not just the Cloud chip. Also the chip I invented and put into people. This will get rid of it without the need for surgery.”

Yuuri continued to gawp like a fish. Victor was beaming now, and Yuuri grabbed him for a tight hug, both of them laughing. “Oh Victor, that’s wonderful. You’re a star.”

“Well it won’t be much use here. But in the future? Who knows.”

“Can you…show me how it works?” Yuuri asked, pulling away and looking at the device.

Victor took him through different screens and tapped in information using the digital pen while he explained. “I wish I could give you a demonstration, but obviously we don’t have a subject here. Though I’ve told Carla about this, so if anyone comes to the commune and wants their chip removing, I can do it. Well, with the caveat that it hasn’t been tested on a human being yet…so to be honest, I’m not sure how many people would be keen to be the first.”

“How _have_ you tested it?”

“The mainstay of neuroscientists in years past. Rats.”

 _“Rats?_ You’ve been experimenting on – ”

“None of them got hurt,” Victor protested. “I used rat brains at first. You can still get those, believe it or not.”

Yuuri tried to erase the mixture of incredulity and disgust from his face and obviously didn’t succeed very well.

“How’s that any different from having bacon for breakfast, hm? Anyway, it was for a good cause. I happen to know where Phichit sources his spare chips from and got some of those. Of course I would have preferred to use the chip I invented, which is different from that one – though in one crucial way it isn’t. They’re essentially made of the same materials; it’s just that mine’s very carefully linked with specific synaptic regions, which can vary depending on the patient and their symptoms, and that’s why you need an operation to insert or remove it. Anyway, once I inserted the chip into the rat brain, I could experiment with destroying it in ways that didn’t harm the surrounding tissue.”

“You said ‘at first.’ What were you experimenting on after rat brains?”

“Live rats.”

Yuuri looked around the room.

“Herb’s got them. He agreed to keep them as pets.”

“I can’t believe you were experimenting on rats,” Yuuri mumbled.

“How else was I going to make sure this worked?” Victor said with a touch of annoyance.

“Were you…anaesthetizing them and operating on them and everything?”

“If I can do those things to a person, you think I can’t do them to a rat?”

Yuuri was suddenly reminded of his impromptu surgery during the lantern festival in Boston. “Where did you learn to do all that? I never asked.”

Victor was silent for a moment. “I learned a lot through the Institute. What I didn’t know, they trained me to do, or sent me to study. It would never have been in publicly accessible material for people to find out about.” He hung his head as he leaned on the counter. “They’re good at training people, it seems. For all kinds of things.”

Yuuri ran a hand gently along his back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Victor sighed and straightened. “Well, it was harder to implant the chips in the rats than it was to destroy them, anyway. As far as we can tell, they’re all fine. Running around and eating and everything. Though rats aren’t the same as humans. Even so, I’m confident this should work with any organism, because you can be so precise with it.”

“How _does_ it work? You still haven’t said. Is it sonic, then?”

Victor nodded, tapping at the screen. “It destroys the chip – hypothetically, it should destroy whatever you’re aiming it at – via extracorporeal cavitation. The technology’s been around for decades but was never refined. It would’ve been like trying to crack a nut open using a stick of dynamite. This device fine-tunes the effect. You target the chip’s exact location in the brain first, like this.” He tapped some more while Yuuri watched the screen. “You’d carry on from here if you had a subject in front of you to work on. Then, holding the device very steady – you can use just your hand, but it’s best if you brace it against something hard, or your other arm, so it moves as little as possible – and it sends a targeted, very powerful ultrasonic pulse from here – ” He pointed at the end of the device. “ – that destroys the molecular bonds of the material. You get debris from that, of course, but the cerebrospinal fluid flushes it out as it naturally does with any toxin.”

“You’re disintegrating the chip with soundwaves,” Yuuri said.

Victor blinked, then smiled. “Well. Yes, that’s a good way to put it, if simplistic. I’ve been explaining it to you in case you need to use it yourself sometime.”

Yuuri’s eyes opened wide. “Me?”

“You said you wanted to help. I’ve made a spare device, too – never have just one prototype.” He pulled an identical one out of the drawer and handed it to him. “A souvenir. Put it in your backpack and take it home.”

It fit comfortably in the palm of Yuuri’s hand. He examined it. “I did say I wanted to help. It’s just…” He huffed a laugh. “Don’t be mad at me for this. But after all this time we’ve spent doing unscientific things, it’s easy to forget just how much of a genius you are.” Victor laughed. “I mean, this is way peak. I can’t believe, in the time we’ve been here, you’ve done this.” He shook his head in amazement. “What have I been doing? Making mud bricks.”

“Me too,” Victor said softly. “And we’ve done a lot of wonderful things together.”

Yuuri’s cheeks pinked. “Yeah, OK. But you ought to get the Nobel Prize or something for this.”

“No,” Victor said, his voice surprisingly firm. “I only made it to undo a series of big mistakes. That’s not worth winning a prize for.”

“It’s a very good reason,” Yuuri said, leaning in to kiss his cheek.   


	61. Chapter 61

Yuuri couldn’t pinpoint where Victor’s outlook started to change for the worse over the following weeks. The realization hit him one day; a progression of things that had built up. He was quieter, more withdrawn. Listening to what Yuuri told him, but with little to offer himself. He wasn’t staying up later or getting up earlier, but his face had an increasingly haggard look that Yuuri found disturbing. He seemed worn; exhausted. Yuuri asked him if he was feeling OK – too many times, it seemed, because the final time he asked, Victor had snapped, “Why shouldn’t I be? Do I look that bad?” When Yuuri told him he seemed tired, he just said quietly that he was, and left it at that; and Yuuri didn’t want to press him.

It was particularly hard to understand because it had felt to Yuuri like they were settling in well at the commune. He knew they had no intention of staying long-term, but they’d agreed it had been a good solution to their immediate problems. And yet Victor seemed to be slipping back into the despondency he’d felt while they were in San Diego. It was like clouds gradually deepening across a bright sky, so slowly and surreptitiously that you wouldn’t notice from one minute to the next, until the rains came and you wondered how that had happened. And when they stayed, as day followed on from day, you wondered what the brightness had felt like in the first place, or if it had just been a dream.

Yuuri tried to stay in a positive frame of mind for both their sakes, but sometimes he felt frayed at the edges, which shot him through with surprise and alarm because this was _Victor_ , the man he loved. So when they had their first real argument, Yuuri could hardly believe it was happening.

It was a Monday morning, and he awakened to slate-gray flat light diffusing through the curtains. It made him want to pull the covers over his head and go back to sleep. Then he realized he’d awakened in the first place because he’d felt Victor thrash as he’d gotten out of bed. Yuuri forced his eyelids open and saw him nearby, getting dressed.

“It’s freezing in here,” Victor muttered, having put on a pair of black slacks and rooting around in a dresser drawer. Then he looked over at Yuuri. “Can’t you try to leave me some covers at night?”

“What?” Yuuri mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and half sitting up. “I don’t understand.”

“You mean you didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

Victor huffed and pulled on a heavy long-sleeved black and gray striped shirt. “That you steal the covers. I end up lying there shivering half the time, because all we’ve got for heat in this house is that fireplace, and the fire dies down at night.”

No, he hadn’t known. He felt embarrassed, and angry at himself, even though it wasn’t something he had much control over. And because of all that, and his frustration with Victor’s recent moods, he was lashing out before he realized it. “I’m sorry, Victor. Honestly. I don’t know what I can do to change that, though, so just yank them back and we’ll be even, OK? Just don’t act like I’m the only one who does stuff that’s annoying.”

Victor’s brow clouded. “What do you mean?”

“You never do the laundry. Then when you notice you don’t have any clean clothes left, you act as if it’s my fault.”

“I don’t,” Victor said in a scandalized voice.

“You fucking well do.”

“Well at least I wash the sink out after I’ve shaved, unlike _some_ people. It’s only polite.”

“That’s when I can get in there. Seriously, how long does it take just to comb your hair?”

Victor raked a hand through his bangs as if they themselves were offended. His face registered shock, and then he said, “This is off the point. Which is that I’m cold at night because I have no covers left.”

“Are you telling me you think I do it on purpose? Speaking of things people don’t know they do at night – you snore, Victor. Do you do _that_ on purpose?”

Victor gasped and met his eyes for a moment. Then he went to the door, grabbed his jacket off the peg on the wall, and went outside without another word.

Once the adrenaline drained out of Yuuri, he felt like he was going to pieces, horrified at what had just happened. Tears sprang to his eyes as he got out of bed mechanically and put on jeans and his teal T-shirt. Then he sat back down on the mattress, the drops running down his cheeks and making dark marks on his clothes where they dripped. He was new at relationships, and certainly new at dealing with situations like this, though it didn’t take any great intelligence to realize he’d spatched up. How could he have said those things – to Victor, of all people? How mad was he? Would he come back inside the house? If he did, would it be to tell him to clear the fuck off and take the covers with him? He shook with quiet sobs.

After what felt like an age, he heard the door open. He’d been sitting with his forehead in a hand, and looked up to see Victor limned in the daylight. Removing his jacket and hanging it back up, he closed the door and stared over at Yuuri, face blotched and eyes red. Yuuri heard him sniff once, but otherwise he remained silent, the expression on his face difficult to read. It seemed a little sheepish, but also wary. For a moment Yuuri considered reaching out to him with ESP, but the thought frightened him, he realized. Too intense, too dangerous. They would have to fix this somehow with words.

“Victor, I’m so sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “I never meant – ”

“It’s OK,” Victor said quietly. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I started it. I don’t know what got into me. I…that’s not how I want to talk to you. Ever.” His voice shook on the last word.

“Me either.”

“Waking up next to you is one of my favorite things.”

“Mine too.”

“How – ”

 _[Come here. Please, just come here.]_ Yuuri took a deep breath and gave him an imploring look, knowing he’d only just decided not to do this. He tried to get across how much he wanted, _needed_ , him to be here next to him.

Surprise crossed Victor’s face, but only for a moment. Then he was striding across the room, and sat down on the mattress, his eyes expressing regret. He placed a hand lightly on Yuuri’s thigh. “Can you forgive me, _lyubov moya_? The last thing I want to do is hurt you. All those things I said, they don’t matter.”

Yuuri felt another tear trail down his cheek and wiped it away with a sniffle. “But they do. Remember how we promised that if one of us did something that bothered the other, we’d say so?”

Another sheepish look settled on Victor’s face, and his eyes flitted down as he gave a little huff of agreement.

“I…I meant what I said about wanting you to pull the covers away from me to get some back if you have to. Or you can wake me up, even. It’s my fault anyway. I wouldn’t mind. I wanted to say so…but I didn’t mean to add all the other things.” More tears trickled out. “I guess I was just upset about doing something like that, because how do you stop when you’re asleep and you don’t know you’re doing it?”

“Like snoring,” Victor muttered.

“Victor – ”

“I know I do. That’s how I feel about it, too. It’s…embarrassing,” he conceded, picking at the bedsheet.

“I wouldn’t even have mentioned it,” Yuuri said, looking at him earnestly, and finally Victor dragged his gaze up to meet his own. “It doesn’t happen that often, and it doesn’t wake me up. I just hear it sometimes, like when you’re asleep and I come to bed.” He flashed him a little grin. “It’s even kind of cute.”

Victor quickly grinned back, seemingly surprised at his words. “I was exaggerating about the sheets, too. It’s…you don’t do it that much. I felt so cranky when I woke up this morning, I…I think I must’ve taken it out on you.” He gave Yuuri’s thigh a brief squeeze. “I really am sorry. And, um…I’ll try not to take so long doing my hair in the morning.”

Now it was Yuuri’s turn to look down and huff with a rueful grin. “It’d help if I got myself out of bed earlier. And…I’ll make sure I rinse the sink out after I shave. I didn’t even realize I was doing that. Just…old habit, I guess.”

Victor gave him a fuller smile. “Well. I’ll do some laundry, too. I’m used to robots or drones taking care of it, but we don’t have those here. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I should’ve just asked you to take a turn.”

“I should’ve realized.”

“No, I…” Yuuri choked off the words, blinking back more tears. Victor’s eyes were bright too. “Oh Victor,” he sighed, giving him a tight hug. He felt Victor returning it with equal fervor, nuzzling into his hair, moving his hands up and down his back affectionately. He was whispering something in Russian. “What does that mean?” Yuuri asked, his voice muffled against Victor’s shirt.

“I said I hate to see you cry, especially when I’m responsible. I love you so much.”

Yuuri said quietly, “I love you too, Vitenka. I’ve been a complete gonk.”

“No,” Victor said gently, tilting Yuuri’s chin up with a finger. “That could never be you.”

Yuuri felt suddenly lost in those blue eyes. They looked like they’d captured happier skies before the clouds had settled in. Despite what was no doubt his disheveled appearance, blotchy face, eyes bloodshot and nose blocked from crying, he surprised himself by leaning forward for a kiss. It seemed to be what Victor was waiting for, and he kissed him back softly. Yuuri had to briefly break apart to take breaths. But he didn’t want to stop. Nor did Victor, it seemed, as he ran a hand through Yuuri’s hair, the other clutching rather than caressing at his back now.  

“We’re going to be late for work,” Yuuri said against his lips, feeling obliged to say so but hardly caring.

“We’ll make it up to them,” Victor muttered back.

***

Over the next couple of weeks, as early spring brought buds to bare tree branches and the days warmed a little more, Yuuri dared to hope that Victor would be heartened, especially since there were a few metaphorical bright patches that shone into their days as well. A newcomer to the commune had volunteered to allow Victor to disintegrate their Cloud chip for them; he had told Yuuri afterward that it had been a young man who was excited about helping to develop such a useful piece of technology, though he’d also gotten the impression he was a risk-taker anyway, since he’d mentioned participating in extreme sports as a hobby. The procedure seemed to have been a success, which meant that Victor spent some time showing Yuuri how to operate the ultrasonic device, with the aim of using it on people when the opportunity arose. They practiced at the workshop on rat brains, which had been chilling in the fridge there. _No different from eating bacon for breakfast,_ Yuuri had kept telling himself, though it hadn’t helped. Nevertheless, he was thrilled at what he considered a great achievement for Victor, though Victor didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm. He said he would probably feel happier when he got the chance to use the device on someone he’d operated on.

They both made a conscious effort to be more considerate to each other in the house as well, which included being more open about things that bothered them, or asking the other to do something. It often took just a quick word, which meant the issue didn’t escalate into a problem. Yuuri reassured himself that he hadn’t gotten things completely wrong early on, such as when he’d implied to Victor that he hadn’t liked it when he left his weights lying around; and from then on he had made sure he didn’t – most of the time, anyway. He realized it was something they’d have to remain committed to, if they wanted things to work out; and he was beginning to have faith that they would. No one had taught him the rules about sharing your life with someone. No book spelled them out. He supposed it was different for everybody, and he was learning as he went along. It seemed as if they were both doing OK in that respect, he thought.

And yet…underneath it all was a layer of blue that Yuuri could sense much of the time, if not all. Victor was often in a prickly mood, though he seemed to be doing his best to try to mitigate it around him. He continued to do an almost equal share of the cooking, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it anymore, and he was losing his appetite too. Yuuri tried to cheer him up one evening by making pryaniki, along with black tea with milk and sugar to dunk them in. Victor was appreciative, but something about his response made Yuuri wonder if it was meant as more of a polite thank-you than because the treat had had the desired effect. His heart sank as he remembered Victor’s effervescent enthusiasm in Boston when he used to bring freshly baked delicacies from the Russian bakery to the MIT office. That hadn’t even been a full year ago. But it seemed like a lifetime away, somehow.

One Saturday morning, Yuuri was dreaming about riding on an endless freight train journey in a bottomless boxcar. He knew he had to fight sleep off if he wanted to stay alive, and his efforts jolted him awake, so that he was staring at the glowing blue numbers on the clock next to the bed and feeling amazed that for once he’d awakened before Victor. He lay for a moment staring at his outline under the white blanket – which, he was pleased to see, hadn’t been snatched away in the night. The rise and fall of his breaths, whispering into the silence of the room. Yuuri’s heart ached with love for him. He wished he could wrap his arms around him and heal whatever hurt had been plaguing him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried. It just didn’t seem to help.

_Maybe he really is out of my league, and has been all along, and this is the result because I couldn’t accept it, and took him and made him mine – and hurt him._

He told himself it was his anxiety talking. There were all kinds of things wrong with that thought, and he wasn’t going to validate it with any further reflection. Instead, he’d make them breakfast. He slipped quietly from under the sheets, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes to keep his feet warm, then went to the kitchen and looked at the ingredients they had. Something fairly quick and uncomplicated – he was hungry – but nice…

He was grating some cheddar when a voice behind him said, “Good morning, my love.” Victor placed a hand on his arm and pressed a kiss to his temple. “What are you making?”

Yuuri sighed. “I was going to surprise you; I didn’t realize you were awake. Omelets, if that’s OK with you?”

“Sounds lovely.” Victor’s voice had a thin quality. Yuuri felt him move away, and when he glanced around, saw he was fully dressed and sitting at the table with his laptop open in front of him. There hadn’t been anything at all wrong with their exchange. Apart from the fact that he discovered he’d expected Victor to do something more, like slip his arms around his waist and purr something else into his ear, or offer to help cook, or show more interest in what he was doing here in the kitchen; make conversation. He was familiar enough with Victor’s habits by now to realize when something was off. But then, maybe he had no right to expect to be fussed over all the time. They were living together now, not wooing each other. Though something about those thoughts bit, too.

“Well now that it won’t wake you up,” he said, “do you mind if I put some music on?”

“Sure,” Victor said, squinting at something on his screen.

Yuuri had compiled a playlist on his laptop, and often enjoyed listening to it through the speakers Victor had bought him as his late birthday present. With Victor’s guidance, he had sampled a lot of classical music and chosen the pieces he liked best, though there were selections from many other genres and time periods. He put something on that would wake him up the rest of the way and get his feet tapping while he busied himself with making Victor a cup of coffee, then preparing the rest of the ingredients for the omelets.

There was nothing like listening to your favorite songs to put you in a good mood. When “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” came on, he started to move to the music, then sing playfully to it, then dance as he worked, flicking happy smiles at Victor; and he was gratified to receive some in return. This had once been his favorite music video; he’d spent hours copying Freddie’s moves, even dressing up like a 1950s greaser in the privacy of his room, where he could imagine he was sexy and no one was around to laugh at what he looked like. Getting the chance to do this now, in front of Victor, set his heart on fire. He was minding Victor’s omelet in the frying pan and flipped it up into the air with a flick of his wrist, doing a twirl and catching it as it came down, and sending another ridiculous smile to Victor, who let out an appreciative laugh. It had been a while since he’d tried doing anything like that, and he knew he couldn’t have been showing off more shamelessly if he’d hit a home run and then blown Victor a kiss. But it was harmless, he thought. And fun.

“One omelette for sir,” he announced a few minutes later as he brought it over on a plate. His cheeks still flushed from the kitchen antics, and feeling unusually bold, he added in an exaggeratedly sultry voice, with his head tilted and eyes hooded, “Is there anything else sir requires? He only needs to ask, and…his wish will be my desire.”

Quickly abandoned, the omelet got cold. Victor reheated it half an hour later.

***

Yuuri finished washing the last of the pots and bowls and dishes from breakfast, leaving them to drip dry. As he headed toward the sofa, he heard his tablet ping, and checked it to discover a message from Victor. A dopey grin spread across his face as he tapped at it, thinking about what they’d been doing just a few hours before, though the grin faded when he read what Victor had written.

 _Thank you for everything this morning, Zvezda. You are_ amazing. _I’m in the middle of something here and would like to finish it, if that’s OK with you. It would mean missing your ballgame, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. Love you xxx_

Yuuri typed back, _Sure that’s fine. I’ll see you later. Love you too xxx_ Then he added, _And you’re the amazing one._ And sent it.

Victor had said earlier that he could do with spending some quiet time on his own at the workshop. Usually it was Yuuri who wanted time to himself, but he could appreciate that everyone needed it occasionally, and said he didn’t mind. He’d gone to the commune’s gym for a good workout and went to the store on the way home. Did a few other chores. But it had been a while since Victor had gone to a ballgame, and he’d said he’d been looking forward to this one. Yuuri had been as well, and not just because of what they’d gotten up to together in the house after the last one, though the memory of that still sent a pulse of heat through him; bringing the piece of wood home from the house-building site had been an inspired idea. No, it was something far simpler: having a friend in the stands to share the experience with. Someone who was cheering for him. Who understood him and cared. That made it feel more worthwhile, despite the fact that Yuuri enjoyed playing anyway, and got along well enough with his teammates. If Victor had been looking forward to the game, Yuuri had been looking forward to it more. Well, there would be other games.

He didn’t hear from Victor again before he had to leave the house. Today he decided to cycle to the field, though it wasn’t far, since he’d already been on the treadmill at the gym. And that afternoon saw him hit his first home run since he’d joined the team here. He knew it the second the bat had met the ball, perfectly pitched and hovering right over the center of the plate, begging to be swatted with the sweet part of the wood. Nothing else felt quite like the satisfying thwack of that. He’d seen the ball fly, ripped off his helmet and run, and soon heard the cheers of the spectators and his own teammates. No racing around the bases this time; he did the customary victory trot, sharing a high-five with the runner from first who he’d hit home. He wasn’t a hero, and it wasn’t the best play of the game. But they won, and he’d contributed to that, and had his own brief moment to shine as well. When he got home, he’d tell Victor about it.

Only, Victor wasn’t home when he got back. He’d been gone for hours. There’d been no further messages since the morning. Nothing sent via ESP either. Maybe he should check up on him…but no, Yuuri decided. It wasn’t like Victor was a dog being kept on a leash, he told himself firmly. He was a grown man with a life of his own who was free to do as he pleased. He pulled off his uniform and put it in the washing machine, took a shower, got dressed, and sat on the sofa with his laptop to browse the Cloud for a while, though concern about Victor increasingly distracted him. The darkest part of his mind began to slip him thoughts of agents lurking, capturing, killing. He told himself he was being ridiculous. But it was still hard to concentrate.

Eventually the door opened and Victor stepped inside, causing a wave of relief to sweep through Yuuri. He put his laptop down and stood. “Victor, I was worried. I…I’m sorry, but you were gone a long time, and – ”

Victor looked at him vacantly, then put his backpack down and hung his jacket on a peg. “You knew where I was.”

He hadn’t wanted to say it, but he felt he had to now. “What if you’d been hurt, or…or worse? How was I to know, when we’ve got people after us? Couldn’t you just have sent a message, on the tablet or with ESP, to let me know you were OK?”

Realization only seemed to be dawning on Victor now, with Yuuri’s words. “I – I didn’t think about it like that. The time got away from me…I’m sorry, Yuuri.” Did his skin have a gray cast, or was it the evening light in the house? He looked worn, too. “I’m not feeling good. I think I’d better lie down.” He walked over to the bed and flopped onto it.

Yuuri hurried to join him and stood, his heart in his throat, wondering what to do. “Victor – ”

“Please, Yuuri, I…just need to rest for a while.” He was lying with his back to him. Yuuri considered lying down next to him and holding him, but that was obviously not what he wanted right now.

“What can I do to help?” he asked softly.

“I don’t think I feel up to eating anything tonight. Maybe you should go to the dining hall. I might be feeling a little better by the time you get back.”

“I…um, OK. If you’re sure. I’ll have my tablet with me; just let me know if you need anything.” He waited for a response, but when he didn’t get one, he put on his fleece, slipped his tablet into a pocket, and left, feeling like this was the last thing he ought to be doing, though it was what Victor had said he wanted.

_Victor, please tell me what’s wrong._

He should say that. He should’ve said it a while ago. But…maybe not, he thought as he tucked his hands into his pockets and walked along. The evening sunlight was golden across the tops of the trees.

 _Maybe this is my fault._ The thought had crossed his mind many times. He would kick it away, but it would boomerang back. _Maybe living with me isn’t what he hoped it would be. Maybe…I’m not very good in bed. He’s the only person I’ve ever had sex with, after all. I thought I knew what I was doing by now, pretty much, but…_

That was silly too, though, he told himself. If he’d been a disappointment to Victor in that respect, he would hardly want to participate in what Yuuri had come to believe was their intense, vibrant sex life. He’d say something. Or he’d be less keen.

_Oh for heaven’s sake. We had a wonderful time just this morning. Why am I letting myself listen to all these stupid worries?_

Mind you, the paleo eating was sliding occasionally. Those pryaniki had probably gone straight to his hips. That was what it was like when he ate those kinds of things. Was he gaining weight? Was Victor finding him less attractive? Before he could help himself, he lifted the front of his fleece and shirt enough to slip a hand inside and try to pinch some flesh. But it was mostly hard muscle there.

_I’m being ridiculous._

Was Victor sick?

Yuuri could understand it if he had spent a few days, or even a week, in this state, if that were the case. But he didn’t have any obvious symptoms. Sometimes, like this morning, he seemed his normal self. Other times, like now, he was…haunted, almost. Once again, their time in San Diego sprang to mind. Though at least Victor hadn’t been drinking any more than he usually did, as far as Yuuri could tell.

He knew it was that tar pit of illogical thinking that lived within him which was impelling him to pin the blame for Victor’s behavior on himself. Because that was easier than facing what he was almost certain was the source of Victor’s malaise; one that had so far eluded their attempts at a solution. It was why he didn’t want to ask what was wrong. He could imagine what Victor would say, and Yuuri felt he had precious few crumbs of comfort to give. What to do about their futures; about their lives as fugitives. They were developing the ESP. Victor had created that genius device. While those things perhaps proved that they were serious in their aims, they didn’t bring those aims any closer. There were agents after them, without a doubt, just as there had been before. One day they might even find them here.

Yuuri stopped in the middle of the path. He had a stomach ache. And a headache was coming on as well, now that he thought of it. He wasn’t any hungrier for dinner than Victor was. But…he wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the house, either. He had his tablet if Victor needed him. They had the ESP too, though they hadn’t used it much of late.

He decided to go see if Sheila and Sumayya were in. As he approached, he discovered they were outside grilling hamburgers, and they offered him one. After chatting with them for a while, he decided he might be able to swallow and digest it, with the aid of the bottle of beer they’d given him. They asked where Victor was, and he said he wasn’t feeling well. They’d never be close friends, himself and these two women, but for a while it felt good just to be with people who were willing to provide some company without deep shadows shading the background. His heart felt lighter; and when he returned to his own house, Victor was out of bed and apologizing for earlier. Yuuri kissed him and said it was OK. Though that wasn’t really how it felt.

Another week passed. As if he didn’t have enough trouble getting up in the morning, Yuuri began to feel the weight of every day settle on his shoulders, pressing him down, before he even sat up. He would look at Victor’s beautiful pale face in the morning sun, untroubled in sleep next to him, and wish he could help him stay that way when consciousness awoke. He told himself to be strong for both of them. But surely something practical was needed. They’d gone from staying in motels and hotels to here. What and where next? There had been no more job offers from the universities Victor had written to, and Yuuri didn’t know what else they could try.

Occasionally, while they were sitting together on the sofa or cuddling in bed, Victor would make comments seemingly out of the blue that Yuuri was unsure how to respond to. Once it was, “Do you miss your family?” He knew Yuuri didn’t. Or the knowledge would surely return if he thought about it for a moment. It was obviously a roundabout way of saying that he missed his. Yuuri ached for him and wished there was a way they could visit them, but that was something they’d be expected to do, and then they’d be caught. Another time Victor muttered, “Do you think we’ll ever be able to stop running?” _I force myself to believe it every day,_ Yuuri thought in response, _because otherwise I don’t know how I’d be able to function._ But he’d just held Victor tight and remained quiet.

One Sunday afternoon, Victor was working with a pile of tech on the kitchen table, tapping on his tablet occasionally, while Yuuri cooked a curry to freeze in portions for the week. He turned to Victor to ask him if he preferred chicken or paneer in it, as they had both, when he saw an expression of alarm cross his face; then his eyes went wide with fear, and a hand flew up to his mouth. A dozen catastrophic possibilities raced through Yuuri’s mind in an instant, but then Victor’s lips pressed together firmly and he stood, looking down at the contents of the table as if they offended him.

“Victor, what – ”

“I was going over the areas of the brain in my head,” he said, “and I forgot for a minute what the Bötzinger complex was. I have _never_ forgotten anything so basic before.”

Yuuri’s brow wrinkled. He began to answer, but Victor gave him a sharp glance and cut him off.

“Do you know why that is? It’s because I’m a non-scientist. I’ve _been_ a non-scientist for several months. What am I going to forget next?”

“It’s happened to me, too,” Yuuri said quietly. “I know – ”

But Victor jumped in again as if he hadn’t spoken, this time using a voice as if he were addressing a lecture hall, or recording a Cloud video. “The Bötzinger complex is a group of neurons located in the rostral ventrolateral medulla, and ventral respiratory column. In the medulla, this group is located caudally to the facial nucleus and ventral to the nucleus ambiguous.”

Yuuri put down the wooden spoon he’d been holding and took a few steps forward, his pulse quickening. “Victor, you’re scaring me.” He wanted it to stop, wanted _Victor_ to stop, but they’d pretended to ignore this for far too long, he realized. “You haven’t been yourself,” he said calmly, keeping all accusation out of his voice. He was stating a fact, not trying to lash out, and he hoped Victor could see that. “What…what’s been bothering you so much?”

Victor gave an annoyed huff. “Don’t you know? It must be bothering you too. The bottom’s dropped out of our lives and I don’t think it’s ever coming back.”

“What…” Yuuri said, struggling to understand. “…you mean our careers?”

Victor unfolded his arms and used one to lean on the table, as if to emphasize his words. “What good are we doing here, for ourselves or anyone? What’s the point?” His voice was clipped, full of frustration.

Yuuri blinked. “We’ve talked about this before, and – ”   

“That doesn’t mean we settled it, Yuuri, or that it got any better.”

“But I thought we were getting used to our lives here. I don’t see – ”

“You, maybe. Not me.”

Yuuri took a quick breath, feeling tears prick at his eyes. “But you said – ”

“Whatever I said, I – ”

“Victor! Please stop interrupting me.” He swallowed, his heart feeling like lead. “I – I thought we were OK. With things, for now at least. With each other. I could tell something was wrong for a while, and I thought it might be this – I just didn’t know what to say. Apart from…” His voice wavered. “…I love you, and I want us to be able to work this out. Tell me what to do,” he added quietly.

Victor fell back into his chair and put his face in his hands as his shoulders shook. Yuuri heard his sobs trailing through his fingers and moved to stand behind him, draping his arms gently over his shoulders and kissing the top of his head. A tear ran down his own cheek.

“I don’t understand what’s come over me,” Victor said from behind his hands. “Why this is pulling me down so much. I didn’t think it was like me. I’m so sorry.”

“Victor.” Yuuri tightened his hold and kissed into his hair again. “We’ll find a way through this, together.”

 _Please tell me how,_ he added silently. _Because I honestly have no idea._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> n.b. See Chapter 11 notes for a recipe for pryaniki.
> 
> From Chapter 21, in case you missed it! – [“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6D_BAuYCI) by Queen


	62. Chapter 62

“I don’t think so,” Willow said, talking to Yuuri through the crack in her doorway. He could hear the noise of a children’s Cloud program inside, and the giggling of the young twins. If it was possible, she looked even more tired than the last time he’d seen her. That was when she’d convinced him that she hadn’t been interested in using ESP with him. But he thought there was no harm in asking her to reconsider. Along with Sheila and Sumayya, it was someone to talk to. Particularly when Victor was low. He wasn’t proud of himself for running away, as he thought of it, but…sitting there with him in the house sometimes, it felt like they were both drowning together. He blenched inside when he thought about it.

“You won’t know unless you try,” he said to her, dredging up an encouraging smile.

“It won’t do any good.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He paused. “Look, I won’t do anything invasive. I won’t…try to communicate. But I can show you how to do something that could be useful to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Will you let me in?”

She thought about it, then her shoulders slumped in resignation and she opened the door for him. He removed his backpack as he followed her, shutting the door behind him. The two girls were sitting at the kitchen table, riveted to whatever they were watching on their laptop; Willow paused to turn it down. “Tom’s away at soccer practice,” she explained as she led him over to the dark blue sofa, sitting as she had before in a gold-upholstered chair and looking at him expectantly. “You kinda sounded like you were selling something. I hope that ain’t what this is about.”

Yuuri huffed a little laugh as he opened the top of his backpack. “No. I just thought…” He reached inside and pulled out several old tablets he’d taken home from the tech workshop. “…you might be interested in learning something you could use to protect yourself, and your family.” He placed the tablets on the sofa next to him. They worked, just. He’d checked before he’d come. “I’m in contact with a lot of people who use ESP. We teach each other things all the time.” That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it got the point across, hopefully.

“What exactly do you want to teach me?”

Yuuri glanced at the girls, absorbed in the program. He wondered, with their attention glued to that while he used a quiet voice, if he and Willow might achieve a semi-private conversation. “Did you know that it’s possible to affect physical objects with ESP?” he asked her.

She bit her lip and thought, looking slightly bemused. “I know it can affect your body.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow.

“I’m good at making things like anxiety even worse. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, though, is it? These…‘powers’ are supposed to be healing or something, aren’t they?”

“How do you mean?”

“All that New Age stuff about being connected and clearing your mind and healing people with crystals and whatever.”

Yuuri couldn’t suppress a grin. “That’s an interesting take on it. I guess my own experience is, it is what it is – and what you make of it. Like…” He knew he had to be careful here, and dropped his voice. “…a laser gun. You could use it to go hunting, or to cut a hole in something if you needed to. Or you could use it for the purpose it was designed for. Has…anyone ever threatened you with one before?”

The bemused look deepened. “No, why?”

“Well, what I’m going to show you will enable you to disable laser guns, or any kind of tech. It’s handy if you need to defend yourself.” He picked up a tablet.

“Have you had to do that?” she asked with a hint of awe.

He looked at her. “Yes,” he said simply, deciding the truth was OK as long as he didn’t go into the details. “I know this tablet isn’t a gun, but it’s the same principle.” Then he realized he was about to do something destructive without taking steps to protect her house from damage. He couldn’t very well scorch a hole in her sofa or coffee table. “Actually, I think a rock would be best for putting this on top of. It’s going to make some sparks. Um, excuse me a minute; I’ll just go find one.”

He went outside and returned shortly afterward holding a flat gray rock, and placed it gently on the table, with the tablet on top. Then he sat back down on the sofa and stared for a second. White sparks erupted from the tablet, and a smell of burning metal rose up into the room. A thin trail of smoke curled from the bottom of the device.

“Holy crap,” Willow said, then looked at him with new respect. “I didn’t think anything like that was possible.”

Yuuri grinned, feeling pleased. “Would you like me to show you how?”

She nodded with wide eyes, scooting forward in her chair.

Yuuri spent the next hour doing so, taking breaks while she fetched a snack for the children and found something else for them to do after their show ended. She struggled to produce any effect at first, and made little noises and frowns of impatience, but eventually made a few sparks fly from her tablet; and when Yuuri tried to turn it on, it didn’t work.

“There,” he said with a smile, putting it down on top of the little stack of other ruined tablets they’d both worked with. “You did it.”

“I did, didn’t I?” she echoed with a crooked grin. “That doesn’t mean I wanna meet someone with a gun anytime soon. Mind me asking what you did to get someone like that on your tail?”

“It’s a long story,” Yuuri hedged. “Look, if you want to practice this some more, all you have to do is stop by the tech workshop and ask if they have any old stuff like this they can give you. These tablets all had problems that meant it wasn’t worth trying to repair them, but they were still functioning.” He considered offering to teach her something else, but he supposed there was plenty of time for that in the future. Being here felt a little draining, which was what he’d been trying to get away from by leaving the house in the first place.

“I appreciate you doing this, um, Will. Thanks. You wanna stay and have some lunch with us in a while?”

Yuuri declined politely, said his goodbyes to her and the children, and headed back out into the sun. Most days were pleasantly warm now, if not on the hot side, with March halfway past. As he approached his house, though, his feet slowed and began to feel heavy. Victor had had a difficult start to the day. Yuuri’s attempts to help had been ineffectual, and he’d come up with the idea of visiting Willow just to get out and possibly do something worthwhile.

A wave of nausea passed through him. _Oh Victor. What are we going to do?_

Maybe if he cheered Victor up enough, he’d be able to keep his head above water on his own after that. Some hidden part of him understood that the issue would not be so easily dealt with, however, because he’d been through it before himself. But he had to keep hoping, and wanted to think he might have the power to help lift Victor out of it. After all, they loved each other.

So over the next several days, he did everything he could think of, while he quelled the tide of desperation rising within. They had silent ESP conversations in the house. Yuuri deliberately made silly jokes and stupid puns. He encouraged Victor to go see a film with him, or visit a restaurant. Cooked his favorite foods. But the enthusiasm Victor had characteristically shown for these things was no longer there. It seemed as if he was in a boat that was slowly but surely floating away out to sea, and Yuuri was standing on the shore watching, with no way to bring him back.

One evening after dinner, they sat down on the sofa together, and Victor was reaching for his laptop when Yuuri placed a hand on his knee.

“Victor,” he said, digging within himself for the courage this required, “I, um…I’ve noticed that you still seem to be really upset.”

Victor closed his eyes as if everything in his field of vision was colluding to cause pain. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder to be more cheerful.”

Yuuri felt a stab of frustration. “I’m not complaining. I’m worried about you.”

Victor looked at him. “I told you what was wrong.”

“I know, but…until we can think of what to do next, maybe…” He swallowed and finished quietly, “…maybe you could do with some help.” Before Victor could respond, he added, “The counselor I saw at MIT was really good. There’s no shame in – ”

Victor’s brow wrinkled. “You think that’d help?”

“Maybe it would. Have you ever tried seeing one?” When Victor didn’t answer, he said, “There are some here at the commune – ”

“You looked that up?”

Yuuri felt his heart sinking. “I thought I’d better make sure before I suggested it to you.”

“I don’t need a counselor, Yuuri,” Victor said firmly. “I need my job back.”

“Well it was your Institute’s fault that it all went wrong. How can you wish that everything could be how it was again, when you were working for an organization that performs unnecessary operations and kills people?”

The moment he’d said it, Yuuri regretted it. He’d promised himself he’d stay calm, but somehow the words had fallen out of him before he’d thought. Victor’s face was thunderous.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better, is it?” he said, then abruptly stood, marched to the door, grabbed his coat, and went out.

Yuuri put his face in his hands and wept, long and hard. Victor didn’t come home until he was already in bed. 

In the coming days, he was often on the verge of tears, and sometimes found a private place to sit and cry. The best distraction he had was the children at school; their enthusiasm was infectious, and he was spending even more time researching and planning lessons for them in the evenings now, especially when Victor didn’t feel like doing anything together. But it wasn’t enough to distract him. He would go to the gym, go on jogs, or visit Sheila and Sumayya, who seemed to suspect by now that something wasn’t right between himself and Victor, though he didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with them. Victor wasn’t always blue; he still cooked, tinkered with tech, and had affectionate moods. But they were becoming rare. Yuuri had never felt this alone while he was actually with him, not even those first few days in San Diego when he’d isolated himself in his room and had been drinking. Yuuri wondered if this was going to be a long-term problem, which chilled him with fear. And he was feeling increasingly like a mirror for Victor’s dark thoughts. _What’s the point?_ echoed in his head, sapping his will to do things he normally enjoyed. To his surprise and horror, he’d even begun fending off cravings for chocolate, cakes and danishes that hadn’t troubled him in months. Paradoxically, at other times he lost his appetite completely.

One evening, Yuuri was chopping vegetables in the kitchen while Victor sat on the sofa, tapping at his tablet. The random songs coming from his playlist on the laptop and through the speakers on the counter felt uninspiring. He wondered what else he could play – and suddenly a memory welled up within him, of jogging with Victor through Boston in those early days when they had been getting to know each other. They’d been sharing their playlists, and he’d heard Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” for the first time. It was so beautiful it had brought tears to his eyes. The pinnacle of his life, he’d thought, would be to dance to it with Victor. At the time, it had seemed such a heady, impossible dream. He’d felt so awkward. Wanting to impress his idol; not understanding how he could have stepped out of his fantasies and come to life suddenly one day in his office. Smiling to himself, he found the song on the Cloud and began to play it, the opening piano notes plinking smoothly, almost harp-like.

He strolled over to the sofa with the quiet ghost of a smile, and Victor looked up quizzically. “May I have this dance?” Yuuri asked, holding his hand out.

Victor’s eyes flicked to the speakers as if he’d only just noticed which song was playing. Then his features softened and he gave Yuuri a little grin back, putting his tablet down. Silently he stood and took Yuuri’s hand, wrapping his other arm around his shoulder, allowing him to lead. He nuzzled at Yuri’s hair and kissed his temple as they glided, but said nothing. Yuuri reveled in the beauty of the dance, Victor having lost none of his grace and skill. Yet the lack of conversation disturbed him; he’d come to expect to hear pet names in Russian and English when they did things like this. He wanted to say them himself, but the silence felt infectious. When the song ended, his heart was full of love and longing. _Let’s be like we were, together, enjoying each other._

“Victor,” he whispered into the stillness of the room, capturing his lips in a kiss and gently undoing the top buttons of his shirt. 

Victor paused for a moment, then slid his hands up his back. Pulling away slightly, he breathed “Yuranya,” looking into his eyes, and then closed in for another kiss. Yuuri felt the world spinning pleasantly away.      

They made love for the first time in days, Yuuri taking his pleasure by riding Victor, dipping low for caresses and deep kisses. Victor cried out his name when he came. Afterward they spooned, Yuuri behind Victor, his arms wrapped around his chest.

Being with Victor like this was always the most amazing physical experience, Yuuri thought; but his heart ached. They’d said so little. It felt like Victor’s boat on the sea had continued to drift away. Oh, he _ached_. A tremor passed through him and he hugged Victor tight, as if the mere act could lance out whatever poison had infected his system.

 _Come back to me, Vitenka._ Tears pricked at his eyes.

As if Victor caught a shadow of the thought, he brushed his fingers over Yuuri’s and then gave his hand a quick squeeze before dropping it away. Yuuri heard a quiet sniff, and then silence.

He realized he must have dozed off, because the next thing he was aware of was Victor mumbling in his sleep next to him. Yuuri’s eyelids were puffy and sore; he forced them open to take in the hazy blue light shining into the darkness from the clock. Ten past three.

They’d pulled apart sometime in the night, and Victor was lying on his back, his bare chest gleaming. Yuuri was still on his side, facing him. The room was chilly, and they were both in their underwear, only covered with a thin sheet. Yuuri began to reach for the blanket furled at the foot of the bed when Victor spoke again. Most of it was in Russian, or that was what it sounded like. But there were some words he recognized mixed in as well, and it was enough to send a shiver through him. He heard “Coughlin” and “ _nyet_ ” and “leave me alone.” Then, as he peered with sleep-hazed eyes at Victor’s troubled form, he saw, seemingly more with his mind than his physical vision, a dark shape hovering perhaps half a meter above him. Something blacker than the night itself. With wings, though like a bird of prey in the air, they didn’t flap.

Suddenly sick with fear, Yuuri sat bolt upright and flicked the light switch on the wall nearby. The alcove containing their bed was instantly illuminated; there was no sign of anything amiss. Victor groaned and rubbed his eyes, then blearily blinked up at him.

“Yuuri, what – ” came his thin, tired voice.

“You were having a bad dream, weren’t you?” He gripped the sheet in one hand and started kneading it anxiously.

“The same one I’ve had every night for…the past several weeks, I think,” Victor murmured, clearly still half asleep.

“What? Why didn’t you tell me? What’s in the dream?”

Victor just moaned and rubbed his eyes again.

“What was in the dream, Victor?” Yuuri asked more insistently.

“All right, then.” He sighed and looked at him in resignation. “I…I didn’t want to upset you more than I already had. You know how I’ve said I wish we could work as scientists again. Well, we both want that…” He paused, obviously not liking the idea of pursuing the topic, but knowing Yuuri was pressing him on it. “I’ve been dreaming about us going back to Boston and getting the Cloud chip put back, plus my chip that blocks the ESP.”

Yuuri stared in surprise. “You…dream about us doing this, and…and being happy?”

“No. Not exactly. It’s not what I want; I’ve said that. It’s impossible, anyway. But the dream keeps showing me these scenes from the future, of you and me in Boston, living and researching together. Like we’re being invited back. I keep telling it to stop, because I know it’s not real.” A pained expression crossed his face, and he raked a hand through his hair.

Gripping the sheet wasn’t preventing the tendrils of anxiety from spreading through him, Yuuri discovered as he felt himself tremble. “Invited? Who – who’s inviting you? Us?”

Victor shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s like the ESP – I don’t see anyone or get a name. Just…someone trying to tempt me to go back to the Institute with you and have these things done, and…everything can be like it was.” His eyes opened wider. “I thought they were my own dreams.”

“Is that something you’re likely to dream?”

“No,” Victor answered quickly. “I mean, the recurring part, about us being in Boston, maybe…but it feels like there’s a consciousness there, something that thinks, and keeps urging me to do those things. Like it’s deliberate. I never really thought about it in the daytime…everything started getting on top of me, and – ”

“It was _supposed_ to,” Yuuri said hurriedly, and he saw the realization in Victor’s eyes. “Do you see, Victor – that’s how they’re trying to get at us. They haven’t been able to find us, so they’re trying to get us to come to them.”

Victor propped himself up on an elbow and stared at Yuuri with wide eyes. “Could…someone like Crow really do all that?” Silence fell in the still of the night as they considered the scope of what they were suggesting. “ _Bozhe moi_ ,” Victor whispered. “And it’s not just these dreams at night. I’ve felt so heavy in the daytime, so listless, so…despondent. But it was like that those first days after we got away from the commune, when we were in the motels, so I just assumed that was what was happening to me again. Maybe…maybe Crow found me and locked onto that somehow. Or maybe he just knew, or guessed, how much we’ve been missing our old jobs and careers.”

Yuuri reached out and smoothed Victor’s bangs, then tucked them behind his ear. “I can understand,” he murmured. Victor closed his eyes briefly as if he were savoring the touch. “But to have the power to do that…and to use it…” He huffed. “He’s a cunning, sadistic bastard. Well now that we know what’s happening, maybe we can do something about it. Victor, have you been shield – ”

Victor suddenly arched his back and yelled, his hands flying up to clutch at the sides of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.

“Victor!” Yuuri scrambled to his knees and looked down at him, heart pounding, arms hanging helpless at his sides as he watched his body wracked with pain. “What’s happening?”

He heard Victor take several breaths as he lifted his hands from his face. Then he started to say something, but was hit again, and his whole body convulsed. He cried something out in Russian.

Tears sprang into Yuuri’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. _What…what can I do…I can’t just sit here like some fucking useless gonk…I need to help…but how?_

He knew what this was.

Crow was still here. That was what Yuuri had seen in the dark. Some part of him sent to attack. Filling Victor’s head with those tortuous, monotonous dreams that he never had any intention of heeding; filling his heart with blackness that he’d fought every minute of every day but which had slowly been pulling him under. He’d been discovered, and he knew it, and was making a last-ditch attempt to wound them. If he’d been standing in front of Yuuri right now, he would rip him to pieces for this.

_No. That’s his way of doing things, not mine._

He needed to be calm. But Victor screamed again, curling up in a fetal position facing him, still with his hands against his head, and Yuuri wanted to scream in horror along with him. He felt his own hands shaking. “Victor…fight him. Like you told me to do when this happened. I’ll help you.” He didn’t know how he was managing to keep his voice so steady.

“ _Pomogite mne…_ Yuuri, please…” His voice cracked.

“Makkachin. That was your anchor. Think of Makkachin.” More gasps. The sinews in Victor’s arms stood out. This wasn’t enough; Yuuri needed something more… _Don’t panic,_ he told himself, _you can’t panic, because if you do, both of you will be lost…_

Then he remembered how Crow had connected with him in his apartment. He hadn’t deliberately done this with anyone since, not to that extent. The thought made him feel sick. But just the same, Crow had taught him things. Things that could even be used against him.

Yuuri scooted forward and slid his hand between Victor’s arms, still caged across his front, and moved it up his chest to rest over his heart. “Victor, look at me,” he said in a quiet, firm voice.

_“…ne mogu…”_

“ _Look_ at me.” With his other hand, Yuuri gently pried one of Victor’s arms away, and then the other. A pair of terrified blue eyes blinked back at him. Stuffing his own fear down, Yuuri looked into them; through them. And felt warmth stirring inside as he was enveloped by the essence of the man he loved. The fear he’d forced back, which had settled like rocks lodged in his gut, began to dissolve and drain away. Victor gazed back at him in amazement.        

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Helping you.”

“I don’t – ”

“Don’t look away,” Yuuri said quickly.

Victor’s breathing began to quieten. “That’s – ”

But then another spasm of pain struck; his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open, though he choked back the noises that attempted to wrest themselves from his throat. Yuuri’s heart quivered and a shiver coursed through him, but he continued to look deep into Victor, and somehow, incredibly, Victor managed to do the same. There in the dark and shapeless ether were waves of warmth and love…and in the distance, like the lighthouse in a storm, a white glow. Victor himself; the very core of him. Yuuri felt his own heart resonating, calling out. They held the moment between them, pulled together, mingling strength and peace drawn from deep inside.

 _[You’re a blue light,]_ Victor sent. Yuuri felt his awe. _[Far away in the night, a glow…like the clock on the shelf. So much more beautiful.]_

_[You’re the white heart of a star.]_

_[I am?]_

_[You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.]_

Victor caressed his arm gently. Were they both shaking with fear a moment ago?

To his astonishment, Yuuri let out a little chuckle. And then he realized the attacks had stopped. Or that the last one, the weakest one, hadn’t been followed by anything else. Not yet.

 _[He can’t get back in,]_ Victor sent, and a smile broke across his face. _[He’s flapping his wings but we’ve done something to keep him away.]_

Yuuri smiled into those sparkling blue eyes. “Our light…blended. I think. Like…two candles lighting up a room where one just pushes the shadows away a bit.”

“I think it’s more than that,” Victor said, stroking his cheek. “We found our love, too. Or maybe it’s the same thing. It’s better than any kind of pretend shield…or umbrella.” He flashed a smile, but then grew somber again. “I saw right into you; you let me do that. I didn’t know it was possible…Yuuri, it was so special.” His eyes began to brim.

“That’s how I felt, too,” Yuuri said, his heart full to overflowing. He lay down next to Victor and wrapped his arms around him, burying his face in the crook of his neck, and was soon enfolded in a tight embrace. They lay quietly for a few minutes, their breaths slowing as the final vestiges of fear dissipated, like dew in the morning sun. Yuuri didn’t want to ever move away. But part of him was still wary of the possibility of more attempted attacks. Eventually he voiced his concern. “Do you really think he’s gone?”

Victor paused, then said, “Yes, I do. He’s not even trying anymore. I think he realized there’s no point.” He stroked Yuuri’s hair and kissed his head.

“He’s found us both, now. I wonder how.”

“Who knows. Other presences find you. Maybe he does what they do. Whatever that is.”

“Have you been shielding?” Yuuri asked, pulling away a little so he could look up at him.

“I…well, not as much as I should. It’s hard to remember.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Actually…I think some days have passed where I completely forgot.”

Yuuri raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said with a sheepish look. “I hurt all over.” His voice dropped. “That was…scary.”

“It was when he did it to me, too. Victor, please promise me you’ll make sure you keep shielding.”

“I promise.”

“I promise too.”

“I wish there was some way we could go on the offensive,” Victor murmured. “I wonder how…”

Yuuri sighed and ran his hand along Victor’s arm. “The thing is, if we did manage somehow to attack Crow, and if we…disabled him somehow – can you do that to a person with ESP? – I’m not sure how much it’d help us. They could just send somebody else. Maybe not as strong as him; I have a feeling not many people are. But they’ve got other agents, too. I’m not against finding ways to strike back at them somehow, but…it just feels like the problem’s bigger and deeper than that, and attacking individuals isn’t going to achieve much.”

“That’s a cheerful thought.”

Yuuri looked at him again, unable to hide his concern. He’d been so careful over the past few weeks not to say anything that would drag Victor down further, though of course he hadn’t always succeeded.

“Also a practical one,” Victor added before he could reply. He tightened his embrace. “But it doesn’t matter right now, does it? We’re safe, and together. That’s what’s important.”

“You’re right.” Yuuri kissed his neck.

Somehow he lingered on the edge of wakefulness after Victor had drifted back off to sleep. They were spooning again, though Yuuri felt a warmth and closeness that had been lacking before, and for a while, part of him just wanted to savor it.

Maybe, he thought, it was also the odd sense of elation he’d felt, even in the midst of dealing with Crow, that they had found the source of Victor’s troubles – and it was something they discovered they had power over. Though it wasn’t strictly true that it was the actual source, he reminded himself. If the seed hadn’t been there, he doubted Crow could have made it grow into a choking weed. Yuuri knew there were plenty of seeds inside himself that were waiting to be found, too, and wondered how he would have fared if Crow had chosen to try to do this to him instead. He could imagine the unrelenting pain all too well, and gave an inward shudder. God, poor Victor, having been put through that. It was insidious; calculated and cruel. Crow had gotten them in what was probably their weakest point, and they hadn’t even realized they’d been under attack. Well, Victor was the one who had been attacked, though Yuuri had been affected by association, and he thought it likely that Crow would have been aware of that; would even have hoped to achieve it. What else was he capable of? He didn’t want to speculate.

Sometime before the glowing blue four changed to a five on the clock, Yuuri dozed off himself, still clinging to the warm, solid presence next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqwa9x8f0a8%E2%80%9D>%E2%80%9CRhapsody%20on%20a%20Theme%20of%20Paganini) by Rachmaninoff


	63. Chapter 63

A pleasant breeze gently teased Victor’s bangs as he lounged in the folding wooden chair in the backyard – could you call it a yard if it had no fence or real border at all, and wasn’t a defined area? The patch of wild land outside, then. His tablet lay on his lap, and on a little wooden table next to him was a plate of pryaniki he’d baked himself, and a cup of hot milky tea to dunk them in. Cherry trees were blossoming all around the commune; there was even one out here, its pale pink petals fluttering. He’d never realized how many there were before, and was struck by their delicate beauty; and by the luminous blue sky, the deep green shrubs and needles on the pine trees, the many different earthy shades of tree trunks, the bright rays of sun shimmering down like crystals. He noticed it all now, and it seemed more vivid, more real than before; no longer like he was looking at the world through a gray filter. The leaden weight that had settled permanently on his shoulders had lifted as well, and his appetite had returned. He felt tired, it was true; but it was a sleepy kind of tired, rather than the exhaustion that had been sinking through his bones. He didn’t want to think about what the cause of it all had been, or how another human being could’ve done that. The gladness in his heart, about how _alive_ he felt again, was enough.

Once they’d both realized how much better he felt when he’d awakened, Yuuri had insisted he take the day off work, and had messaged the necessary people at the house-building site and the workshop. He’d fussed over him like a mother hen, but seemed happy to do it, and Victor couldn’t say he minded. Relax today and sleep well later, he’d said. And shield, shield, shield.

Victor dunked a pryanik in his tea and shoved the whole thing into his mouth, feeling indulgent. It was the first time he’d ever baked these, and they were _vkusno_ , if he did say so himself. Then a fond smile played over his lips. Not only had Yuuri insisted on taking care of him this morning, but his face had positively glowed upon seeing the change in him. Victor’s smile became wistful as he realized there had been no discernible trace of bitterness lingering from what he knew had been difficult days. And yet it was obvious that he had been hurting his love over and over, despite countless resolutions to do his best not to. He could see it in Yuuri’s eyes, and not just when they were red from crying.

_I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Yuranya. I’m…blessed._

Yuuri would probably never know what a struggle it had been for him to achieve just the degree of functionality he’d been managing. How he’d tried so hard not to say anything that would upset him further. How he’d pushed himself to carry on with day-to-day tasks even though he’d been so, so tired, and it was beginning to seem as if they had no meaning. How he’d been fighting off the temptation to drink again, to drown it all out and snatch some moments of relief, though the firm promise he’d made to Yuuri about that had been his bulwark against it. Giving in would only have made things worse, of course; but it was his love for Yuuri that had guided him more than anything else. Yuuri didn’t need to know. But Victor was grateful for his support all the same.

That evening, when Yuuri got home, he walked around to the back of the house to find Victor in the chair. He was still wearing his smart black work pants and white button-down shirt, while Victor had been walking around all day in a pair of gray jogging pants and a black T-shirt, barefoot. It was fun to feel the soil and springy plants under his toes.

Yuuri stood behind him and draped his arms over his shoulders, then bent to kiss his temple. Victor wrapped his hands loosely around his arms and slid them slowly up and down, taking in the faint scents of laundry soap on his shirt, something vaguely chemical that was probably the result of whatever experiment he’d been doing with the children at school, and Yuuri himself. That was the best one.

“Have you moved from here at all today?” came Yuuri’s voice near his ear.

“Of course I have,” Victor replied in a mock-offended tone. “I’m not _that_ lazy, you know.”

“Well I did tell you to take it easy.”

“I have been. Mostly. I went to the gym, but that’s taking it easy, too.” When Yuuri began to say something, he jumped in and added, “It _is_. Today was my vacation day, and that’s what I wanted to do on vacation. It was the first good workout I’ve had in ages. I’ve got energy again. And there are cherry blossoms everywhere.” He took Yuuri’s hand in his and caressed the palm with his thumb. “Remember a year ago when we were walking down the Esplanade together and the blossom was landing in your hair?”

Yuuri breathed out. “How could I forget. It was…beautiful.” He paused. “Confusing. Overwhelming. Just, everything,” he ended with a laugh.

“Well, you see, that’s what happens when you dance with Victor Nikiforov and seduce him with your wiles.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t remember.”

“I’ll remember for both of us.” He kissed the bit of Yuuri’s arm that he could reach on his shoulder. “You know, we should go look at these cherry blossoms together after dinner, before it gets dark. They’re never around for long.”

“I’ll go cook in a minute.”

“I don’t mind doing it. I was going to, but I lost track of the time.”

“That’s OK. You’ve already been baking, haven’t you? More pryaniki. I’ll have to try one later; they smell wonderful.”

 Victor turned his head and looked up at him. “You don’t mind?”

“Course not. Have as many as you like. I’ll jog a few extra kilometers so I can have some too.” His eyes scanned the area. “So what’ve you been doing out here?”

Victor took a deep, relaxed breath. “Enjoying the fresh air. Letting my mind wander. Watching the wildlife. Let me see…” He thought for a moment. “I’ve seen some hummingbirds, and squirrels, and this little lizard with pink and brown stripes. Just now I’ve been watching that beautiful thing on the cherry blossom over there.” He pointed. “Is it a moth or a butterfly, do you think? It’s fuzzy and bluey-gray. I’ve never seen a butterfly like that.”

“It’s a butterfly. A male mission blue. They almost went extinct, but they’re coming back.”

Victor looked at him again and saw that he was smiling. “How do you know that?”

Yuuri replied in an exaggeratedly blasé voice, “Oh, you have to know these things when you teach science to seven-year-olds.”

Victor had a sudden thought. “Have you ever tried ESP with animals? Do you think they’d sense anything?”

“There are those experiments Rupert Sheldrake did that I told you about, but that’s different. I guess you mean like trying to communicate with them? I’m not around animals very often; I haven’t had a pet in years.”

“I’d love to try it with Makkachin,” Victor sighed.

“Well I wonder what a butterfly would be thinking.” He paused, then chuckled.

“What? Did it tell you to bring it a bowlful of nectar?”

“No. He says, ‘Don’t bother me, can’t you see I’m busy?’ ”

Victor laughed. He wasn’t sure if Yuuri was being serious, but didn’t care. “I love you,” he said simply. “So much, I…” His voice trailed off and he kissed his hand. “After dinner, instead of that walk,” he said invitingly, “maybe we could do something else. Together. You and me. That doesn’t involve leaving the house.”

Yuuri leaned down to look at him with a little grin. “You should rest up some more. You haven’t even had a good night’s sleep in weeks.”

Well, that was true. But still. “Spoilsport,” he whispered playfully. “What about tomorrow?”

“We have to go to work. But in the evening? We’ll have to see. Maybe if you’re good,” he added, nuzzling his hair.

“I’m always good.”

Yuuri snorted a laugh and kissed the top of his head.

***

Victor thought he was being _very_ good the next evening by making a roasted-beetroot salad for dinner from a Russian recipe, with balsamic vinegar, walnuts, dates and sour cream. It had been ages since he’d tasted anything like this; his grandmother used to make it. He wanted Yuuri to try it too, and his eyes shot open wide when he did, swearing it was divine. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. But not much of one, Victor thought as he savored it with the crackers and cheese he’d also put on the table. If he’d never met Yuuri, he was sure he’d still be stuck in a rut of eating carry-outs from drones and the odd steak or baked potato. Well, there were more things than that he’d still be stuck with, none of them good.

He had his customary cup of coffee and Yuuri his tea, and then they did the dishes and went to sit on the sofa. “We should open a restaurant together,” Yuuri said as he scanned through his tablet.

Victor made a humph. “Too much hard work.”

Yuuri looked up and smiled. “And being a neuroscientist isn’t?” Then he flinched as if afraid he’d said something offensive. But Victor was so relieved at how much better he was feeling that it didn’t bother him to think about his old job.

“No,” he said. “Chefs definitely have it much worse. And they don’t get to have sexy research partners.” He traced his fingers up Yuuri’s thigh. Yuuri looked at him over the top of his tablet, then put it down on the nearby table and moved so that they were sitting close together, sliding an arm around Victor’s shoulder and playing with the short hairs at the back of his neck. They looked into each other’s eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Yuuri asked.

“I’m feeling _you_ again,” Victor answered; and when Yuuri’s face clouded, he added, with a caress down his cheek, “Ice cream that doesn’t melt.”

“You feel…” Yuuri paused to think. “…like the electricity in the air before it rains.” He laughed and shook his head. “That’s nowhere near as poetic. And maybe it just feels like that to me because it’s exciting being with you.”

Victor chuckled. “Not all the time, I’m sure.”

“It is,” Yuuri insisted. “It’s still hard for me to believe that we’re together. I never thought someone like you would be interested in someone like me.”

“ _You_ are the most wonderful person I’ve ever met,” Victor said quietly. He looked down briefly, and then returned his gaze with a renewed intensity. “Yuuri, I feel terrible about what I put you through these past few weeks. I never meant to, I hope you can believe – ”

“Of course I believe,” came Yuuri’s soft reply. “It wasn’t your fault.” His fingers continued to thread through Victor’s hair. “Besides, no one’s at their best when they’re sick or depressed. And…you’ve had to put up with a lot from me sometimes, too.” He flitted a smile at him, then moved closer so that their faces were centimeters apart. “Maybe that means we’re not perfect. Who could’ve guessed.”

Victor circled his arms around him. “There’s one good thing about falling out with each other,” he murmured. “You get to make up afterward. Let’s do some more of it now.” He leaned forward for a kiss, and was surprised to feel a finger placed against his lips.

“This seems like a good time to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, before you were…Well, I’d been planning it as a little surprise. Maybe it’d be good to do it now, before I have a chance to think too much about it and get anxious.”

Victor’s eyes widened, and he grinned as Yuuri let his finger drop away. “Oh? I like the sound of that. Tell me more.”

“No, you’ll have to wait and see. But I’ll need you to leave the house for…” He glanced at his watch. “…forty minutes or so.”

Now Victor raised his eyebrows. “Forty minutes?”

A blush stole across Yuuri’s face. “Yeah – I want to have a shower, and…do some other things.” Then those warm eyes met his again. “I’ll make it worth it.”

Victor felt a tingle shoot through his body. He could hardly contain his curiosity. Yuuri seemed to sense it, and gave him an impish grin, then leaned in and snuck a quick kiss.

“What should I do for forty minutes?” Victor said in a petulant voice. “I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

“You can, and you’ll have to,” Yuuri replied with a little laugh. “Go for a walk and see if you can spot some constellations outside.”

“I hardly know any.”

“Now’s the time to learn, then. You’ve got your tablet. Look up ‘The Sky Tonight’ or something.”

“I won’t be able to concentrate on that,” Victor said in a low voice, “not when I’m imagining all the things you might be doing here.”

“You’re a genius. I think you can manage.” He added as an afterthought, “And no ESP, trying to get me to tell you what I’m up to.”

Victor humphed again, but his eyes sparkled. Yuuri knew he loved surprises, even if the anticipation could be tortuous. He snuck a kiss himself, catching Yuuri off guard, though he returned it.

“Forty minutes,” Yuuri repeated.

“Forty minutes.” Victor eyed him like a dessert he wanted to devour, then grabbed his jacket off the peg and went outside.

He’d forgotten to take his tablet with him. Yuuri had probably noticed and had a laugh at how distracted he was. But wasn’t it natural? What on earth could he be planning? Maybe he’d found some sexy clothes…what clothes did Yuuri find sexy? That was a whole new area they’d hardly had a chance to explore yet. _Kilts_ , he thought with amusement. But Yuuri wouldn’t need forty minutes just to shower and put on a kilt. Victor thought he’d been to die for in those leather pants he’s worn to Qi. It was a tragedy he’d left them behind. But these were all things Victor had chosen. What would Yuuri choose for himself? It would be fun finding out.

Other possibilities marched maddeningly through his mind as he strolled aimlessly down the local paths. Face paint? But why? Sex toys? Yuuri had never mentioned them. Was he rigging up handcuffs or ropes or something? He laughed out loud. Yuuri didn’t seem the type…though who knew? But Victor _did_ think it likely that he would discuss it with him first. Maybe he was preparing a special bath for them, with rose petals and candles and glasses of wine…but he wouldn’t be taking a shower beforehand in that case, would he?

 _Oh you minx,_ he thought as he checked his watch for the umpteenth time. _What are you planning?_ Thirty minutes gone. It would take him ten minutes to walk home from here, he estimated, if he went slowly. Which he did. He looked up at the stars and thought they were pretty, and that Yuuri had a point; he really should learn the constellations. And actually, you could see a lot of them here at the commune, when you were far enough away from a street light. You could even see the Milky Way. He could recognize that, at least.

These thoughts kept him occupied enough to kill the time until he got home. When he arrived, he knocked on the door, his heart in his throat. “Yuuri? It’s me,” he said, as if it was likely to be anyone else. Tentatively he pushed the door open, then stepped inside. When he spotted Yuuri leaning with his back against the counter, looking at him with a playful little grin and a sparkle in his eyes, he gasped.

“Take your jacket off and stay a while,” Yuuri invited him in a soft purring voice that sent a shiver through him. Victor did as he was told, feeling like he was rapidly losing the capacity for thought. Yuuri was wearing his clothes from Children of Gaia, the old-fashioned ones that Victor had thought suited him so well; he hadn’t gotten them out since they’d arrived here. The tan pants that molded around his ass. Leather shoes. Hemp shirt with sleeves buttoned at the wrists, and the front done all the way up, a chocolate-brown necktie draped down his front. Suspenders. And a Homburg hat to match the tie, which looked like something from the early twentieth century that might have come from the antique shop. His hair was slicked back underneath it. As if that wasn’t enough to make Victor’s breath catch in his throat, Yuuri was wearing make-up subtle enough to give his face a natural-looking warm glow: a bit of rouge over his cheeks, probably some mascara, a slick of lip gloss.

Victor was sure he felt his knees buckle. His mouth was hanging open. Yuuri just continued to give him that little smile. “You…you look…” Victor couldn’t find the words. “Holy shit,” he finally breathed, starting forward.        

“Not yet,” Yuuri said, standing up straight. “I want you to sit on the sofa.”

Victor’s feet took him over there. It had been pushed back and the tables moved away to create more room in front of it. As he sat down, he saw that Yuuri’s laptop was on the counter next to him. Oh. Oh…

“I’m going to get undressed for you,” Yuuri said in that same quiet, matter-of-fact voice, looking at him, that sparkle still in his eyes. Victor swallowed and felt a swell of heat in his groin. “Don’t take your eyes off me…until I give you a clear nod. Then I want you to strip and sit back down. You can touch yourself until I’m finished, but don’t come.”

Victor processed this. It was…different. Interesting. Tantalizing. Oh yes, he could do that…apart from the last bit. He wasn’t sure if he had the stamina. Well, he’d have to find it somehow. He nodded, already feeling his breaths quickening.

Yuuri clicked at his laptop, then moved further into the room, meeting his gaze and giving his lips a lick. A blast of brass instruments and drums began a song that Victor recognized – “You Can Leave Your Hat On” – quickly giving over to the pumping, grinding rhythm of a piano, and then a woman singing in a low, smoky voice. Yuuri tilted his hat to a jaunty angle, flashing him a smile, and began to dance as if the waves of sound were filling him up and carrying him with them. Even while he kicked his shoes off, his arms, back and hips were sinuously graceful. He must have been practicing this for a while, Victor realized. The cunning devil – when? He watched Yuuri raise a leg and slip off one sock, then do the same to the other, as if he were peeling off a glove. All the while, those playful little smiles, mixed with come-hither looks. The difference in his confidence between this, and when they’d first started making out… _Look at you now,_ Victor thought. _You’re incredible._

Yuuri turned his back to him and slid his suspenders off his shoulders, one at a time. Slanting a hooded gaze, he ran his hands up the backs of his thighs, over his ass and up the rest of his body, then flicked his cuffs open at the wrists, swaying to the pounding rhythm. “Jesus, Yuuri,” Victor said in a dry throat, wondering how he was going to survive this.

The shirt was next, button by button down the front, then slipping off his arms. He loosened his tie but left it to lie dishevelled against firm muscles, which flexed as he moved. What he was doing with his hips was obscene. Well, just on the suggestive side of lewd; and the music had the perfect tempo for it. Victor gripped the side of the sofa tight, burning heat coiling in his abdomen, his chest rising and falling. His cock throbbed. _[I want you so much…I can’t stand it.]_

Yuuri turned to face him with a sultry look and nodded, watching expectantly as he slowed his dance. Victor suddenly remembered what he was supposed to do, and stood.

 _[Quickly,]_ Yuuri sent. _[This is my performance for you, not the other way around.]_

With trembling fingers, Victor unbuttoned his own shirt and removed it, then did the same with his other clothes and shoes and socks. He was tempted for a moment to hesitate with his briefs and give Yuuri a bit of a tease, but then remembered that had been exactly what he’d been told not to do, so he pulled them off and tossed them onto the pile. For a moment, however, he did stand there nude, meeting Yuuri’s eyes, knowing his cock was jutting out hard and full, and silently daring Yuuri to stare, to do something about it if he wanted. A smile ghosted across his lips as he sat back down on the couch. Yuuri had slowed almost to a standstill and was giving him a heated look of longing.

 _[Weren’t you supposed to be doing something?]_ Victor sent with a touch of amusement.

 _[Weren’t you?]_ Yuuri returned, collecting himself and resuming his dance. He opened the top button of his pants, his hips doing _those things_ again.

Oh…yes, of course. This would practically guarantee he wouldn’t last, Victor thought, but he would enjoy trying. He took himself in hand and began to stroke slowly, a frisson of pleasure passing through him. If he went any faster, it really would be the end. He gripped the end of the sofa again with his other hand, his thoughts slipping away into a red haze of desire.

Yuuri made a show of undoing the other fastenings at his front while continuing to dance to that relentless grinding beat. The playful smiles had stopped, however, and the looks he slipped Victor’s way were hungry as he watched what he was doing on the sofa. It took some self-control on Victor’s part not to get up, go over there and grab him. Little beads of sweat broke out around his hairline. The pants came off with one fluid movement, and _oh bozhe_ , Yuuri was running his hands over his ass again while he was swaying, holding his gaze. How had he learned all this? Victor’s hand moved to the tip of his cock and he smeared precome around it, giving it light caresses. _Do you like what you’re seeing? Come over here and get some. Really. Please. Now._

Yuuri’s eyes went wide for a moment, but his concentration held; and as the song pulsed to an end, he took his hat off and tossed it away. The sudden silence in the room revealed their breathing. Yuuri’s cheeks glowed under the rouge, and he stared at Victor for a moment with his lips parted, shiny and inviting. Then, undoing his tie, he came slowly forward. Victor eyed the promising bulge in the front of his black boxers. So this had turned him on, too. Well, he supposed the display Yuuri had asked him to make had contributed, but it was his own fault, he thought, looking at him with a mixture of lust and adoration.

Undoing his necktie completely and sliding it off, Yuuri didn’t stop when he got to the sofa, but climbed up and straddled Victor across his thighs, then looped the tie around his neck and held both ends, poised to pull Victor toward him. He tried to give him another little smile, but the heat in his eyes betrayed any remaining façade of control.

“Yuranya, that was…” Victor breathed. “…you…you’re amazing. I’m the luckiest man in the world. The way you…” His voice choked off as he ran his hands up Yuuri’s sides. “Jesus, baby, the things you’re doing to me.”

Yuuri seemed to be considering what to say, then gave up and used the tie to pull Victor in for a kiss, tossing the scrap of material away once their mouths met. It was long and hard and wet, both of them making needy little noises as hands roamed. The hot coil of tension in Victor’s abdomen tightened and tightened. He cupped and kneaded Yuuri’s ass.

Yuuri broke the kiss, gasping against his cheek, his lips still slicked with the slightest bit of gloss, which Victor now shared too; a hint of strawberry. He felt the hot air feathering his skin. There was a pause, then Yuuri whispered his name and trailed kisses along his jaw and on his neck, moaning and squirming on his lap. Victor squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers gripping Yuuri’s sides. There was only one thing in his mind now, and that was raw, aching _need._

“Let me take you,” he gasped out, nuzzling at his face. “I want you. God, Yuuri, I want you.”

A sultry look entered Yuuri’s gaze for a moment, but was quickly chased away by something more desperate. “Please,” he whispered, and Victor felt his thighs tremble as they clenched around his own.

It was almost too much to bear. Victor didn’t think he’d ever been so aroused in his life. He deftly flipped them over so that Yuuri was on the sofa underneath him, and hooked his fingers into the tops of his boxers, yanking them down and off. He considered swooping down for a kiss. Exploring Yuuri’s body; finding a nipple, or something else to suck. But he was so keyed up – they both were, he thought – that anything else would be a distracting waste of time. He felt underneath the sofa and found the bottle of lube they kept there, then after a second’s consideration gave it to Yuuri while he knelt between his legs, a corner of his mouth quirking up while he skated his fingers over Yuuri’s smooth, taut skin.

Understanding registered in Yuuri’s eyes and he squeezed some of the gel onto a hand, dropping the bottle back on the floor and reaching out to massage Victor’s cock. Victor closed his eyes and breathed out. “You’re so good to me,” he said, unable to resist moving his hips in a slow rhythm. When he opened his eyes, the were met with the delectable sight of Yuuri’s chest heaving, eyes bright, legs splayed. He already looked debauched. Well it was going to be a reality in a moment, Victor thought as a wave of pure lust rocked through him.

“Victor… _now_ ,” Yuuri sighed, placing his hands on his hips and attempting to pull him forward.

Victor had been ready to reach for the bottle again. “But we need to – ”

“No, we don’t,” Yuuri said impatiently. “I took care of that while you were gone.”

He’d thought he couldn’t be any more turned on. He was wrong.

“Victor… _fuck_ me.” Yuuri canted his hips up.

 _Iisus Khristos._ Victor nudged forward and planted a foot on the floor for leverage. Then he lined himself up and was buried to the hilt in Yuuri with one movement. Yuuri’s fingers on his hips flexed and he threw his head back and let out a loud moan. Victor watched him for a moment to satisfy himself that Yuuri wasn’t in any pain, but was enjoying this – and was he ever, from the look of him. Trusting that Yuuri would tell him if it was too much, he began thrusting hard and deep as he caressed his cheek, his neck, his shoulder.

Yuuri’s hands glided away; one reached back to clutch the edge of the sofa, while the other fluttered to his forehead, palm up. His body began to writhe. “Yes…yes…harder…”

Yuuri _wanted_ this? Unbelievable. Wonderful. Victor let himself go, pounding into him, a mixture of grunts and Russian oaths escaping his throat. He’d been close before they even started, and he felt like he was riding a runaway train toward his climax. But he wouldn’t leave Yuuri behind. He wrapped a hand around him and began to stroke. Yuuri arched his back and let out a string of gasps and cries. Victor had never seen him so far gone. His own cock swelled and twitched as he continued to thrust, and he groaned, wishing Yuuri would open those beautiful eyes and look at him, unable to put the request into words.

And then, as if catching the tail of the thought, he did. A pair of warm brown eyes, hooded and glazed with lust, met his gaze. And there was the man he loved, who had teased him to distraction and then let him do _this_ to his body, reveling in it all the while. Victor choked out his name, again and again, and forced himself to keep looking as his orgasm ripped through him, his mouth dropping open in an ‘O’. Yuuri’s face screwed up and his hips bucked; he cried out as he erupted on Victor’s hand and onto his belly. But those brown eyes were still there. And a bright blue star, so close it was dazzling…Then they were turning in a tight orbit, radiating their warmth into each other, dancing, loving, blending. Victor’s very heart felt swept up in the peace and joy of it, enveloped by the beautiful light of Yuuri’s being. There were no words for what he felt. They couldn’t come close. He was basking in the glowing sun, full and complete.

He didn’t know how long they drifted like that. Time seemed to have no meaning. But bit by bit, the physical world filtered back through. Their slowing breaths. Yuuri’s body wrapped around his, stilled now. A hand resting on his arm. Wisps of hair fallen out of place and lying against the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Lashes dark, cheeks pink, lips parted. And quiet wide eyes meeting his own, filled with amazement.  

“I…don’t know what that was,” Victor said, his voice breaking the silence. “Did you – ”

“I saw it too,” Yuuri whispered. “Felt it. Victor, I can’t…it was…”

“It was,” Victor agreed with a warm smile, which Yuuri returned. He noticed a towel had been conveniently draped over the ivory throw on the back of the sofa and he gently pulled away to grab it. They cleaned up and then lay back down together, entwining. Victor gave Yuuri a soft, lingering kiss. He used to think this was as close as they could be. But now it was as if their very bodies were barriers. After what they’d just experienced, mingling one into the other…he’d never felt anything like it. “Did you do that?” he pulled back to ask, their arms still tight around each other.

“Mmm, what?” Yuuri said, sounding like he was floating in bliss. His fingers toyed lazily with the hairs at the back of Victor’s neck.

“You said you saw it too.”

Yuuri opened his eyes a little further. He seemed to be considering. “No, I didn’t do it. Not intentionally. It just…seemed to happen.”

“What was it, do you think?” Victor’s voice, like Yuuri’s, was syrupy with sated desire, but he was also curious.

The thoughtful look again. Then the ghost of a grin as he brought a hand around to stroke Victor’s cheek. “I can tell you what I _think_ it was, but…you’d maybe say it wasn’t very scientific. I know what my heart’s telling me, though.”

“What’s it telling you?” Victor whispered.

There was a pause, as if Yuuri were gauging how he might take his words. Victor waited, and eventually Yuuri seemed to decide he would risk it. Looking into his eyes as he continued to glide his fingers slowly over his cheek, he murmured, “I saw your soul.”

A quick breath escaped Victor. He allowed the idea to sink in. Remembered what he’d seen and felt. Weighed his training as a scientist against the experiences he’d had with ESP, with Yuuri, and in special places; St. Isaac’s Cathedral or an avenue under the cherry blossoms, it made no difference. Maybe Yuuri was onto something when he’d talked about science and spirit not being so irreconcilable after all.

“I think you’re right,” he said in awe.

Yuuri gave him what appeared to be a relieved smile, and touched foreheads.

“We were almost there two nights ago,” Victor added.   

“We were. I didn’t know it could get even better.”

Victor kissed him again. Not long ago, if he’d known he was going to end up being this close to someone, it would have frightened him. Even when he’d been getting to know Yuuri, his focus had been on physical needs and trying to start a relationship. This, what they had now, was deeper than anything he’d ever experienced. But he realized he was ready for it, and trusted Yuuri, and wanted it. That was almost as sublime as the vision he’d just had.

“I love you so much,” he said.

“I love you too.” Yuuri gave a little chuckle. “I know it sounds trite. But I mean it.”

Victor smiled. “I guess you must, to have gone to all that trouble to dress up and dance for me.”

Yuuri blushed adorably under the rouge. “I enjoyed it.”

“I could tell. I’d never seen anything so sexy before.” He laughed. “I liked the hat. It suits you. Well, all those clothes do. And…” He moved a hand to Yuuri face and brushed his cheekbone with his thumb. “Make-up,” he said with a playful lilt in his voice. “I like it; it’s nice.”

Yuuri’s blush deepened. After everything they’d just done, Victor found it amusing.

“I’m glad you think so,” Yuuri said. “I haven’t worn any in ages. But for special occasions…maybe I could start again. I like how it makes me feel.”

Victor smiled. “I ought to find out if there’s a club in Sonora where people wear face paint. Then I could get some more. I’d make you look so beautiful, Yuranya…well, you are already.”

“I liked wearing it to Qi.”

Victor kissed his nose. “You know what else I’d like…I’d like to return the favor sometime. What you did tonight. I’ll dress up and dance for you.”

Yuuri let out a breath and Victor actually felt a shiver pass through him. “Oh my god.” He laughed. “I’d combust.”

“How do you think _I_ felt?” Victor said, raising an eyebrow. _“Bozhe moi.”_ Now it was Yuuri’s turn to laugh. “But the important question is, what would I wear? I’d have to think about that.”

“You look good in anything, Vitenka,” Yuuri murmured.

“That’s no help. Let me see…oh.” He flashed a playful grin. “Some kind of lingerie, maybe? I’d have to get creative…”

“Jesus, Victor,” Yuuri breathed. “You’re going to make me hard again.”

“Really?” He gave Yuuri another kiss. “Oh good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> n.b. Final reminder of pryaniki recipe – it’s in the Chapter 11 notes.
> 
> If you’ve never tried anything like this salad? It’s a piece of heaven, with combinations of smooth and tangy, sweet and sour. 
> 
> Russian beetroot and prune salad
> 
>  _Ingredients:_  
>  1kg/2lbs/6 medium beets, peeled, each sliced into 8 wedges  
> Salt and pepper  
> 4 tbsp olive oil  
> 100ml/3.5 fl oz sour cream  
> 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar  
> 2 garlic cloves, crushed  
> 50g/2oz dried pitted prunes, roughly chopped  
> 50g/2oz walnut halves, halved lengthwise  
> 2 tbsp fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, roughly chopped
> 
>  _Instructions_  
>  Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6. Dry-roast the walnut halves in a frying pan, taking care not to char.
> 
> Toss beetroot wedges in olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Place in a roasting tin and bake for 40 minutes or until beetroot is tender and starts caramelizing at the edges.
> 
> Mix the sour cream, balsamic vinegar and garlic, season well with salt and pepper, and stir. Add a little water if dressing is too thick.
> 
> Serve beetroot on a platter, drizzled with the dressing and topped with the prunes, walnuts and coriander (cilantro). Serves 6 as a side dish.  
> _________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> I couldn’t find a version of this song in the low, smoky female voice I wanted! So here’s second best. The person who posted it didn’t always get the spellings right in the lyrics – but “heat” instead of “hat” is fine by me :) [“You Can Leave Your Hat On”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbqpG5fYai4) by Joe Cocker


	64. Chapter 64

“I don’t know. I like the yin/yang symbol, but matching salt and pepper shakers with the pattern on them is a little on the tacky side, don’t you think?” Yuuri looked up from browsing the eclectic selection of items arrayed on the table in front of him. “Victor?”

He’d been standing nearby a minute ago, but had wandered further into the dim agglomeration of tables and coat rails and shelves, and was looking at a pair of brown leather gloves. Maggie’s Collectibles and Curiosities in Sonora was one of the largest antique shops Yuuri had ever been in, and he often enjoyed browsing here on the lookout for just those things, especially old tech. But he still hadn’t discovered a radio on his visits; and as they couldn’t call him on his tablet, which was only safe to use around the commune, he had to take pot luck whenever he came. To his annoyance, they refused to put one aside for him if someone happened to sell them one. It would have helped him far more to have had a radio at Children of Gaia, of course, because he had his laptop and a pair of speakers and access to the Cloud now. But he was still curious about the kinds of things people were broadcasting, trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Maybe they were talking about the chip and surveillance to anyone willing and able to listen.

He didn’t suppose he really needed any of the things he was looking at. More than anything, it was fun just to see what was here. It was almost like a hands-on museum. There was a neon Coke sign glowing red against the wall, and an old gaslight in the corner that looked like it had been ripped off a street a hundred and fifty years ago. A hurricane lantern of the type a miner might have taken underground stood on the table next to a set of ceramic Kewpie dolls. Yuuri couldn’t understand the appeal of such things; they seemed sinister to him.

“Yuuri, what do you think?” Victor called over. He looked, and took in the vision of Victor in a long tan-colored duster coat, wearing the gloves and a Homburg hat very similar to the one he himself had bought from here. “We almost match. We could put our own special show together.” He flicked the bottom of the hat brim and gave Yuuri a wink and a smile.

Yuuri felt a tremor pass through him, and his eyes widened while his cheeks went scarlet. He wanted to throw out some witty response, but his brain was temporarily malfunctioning, and he just swallowed. Victor’s smile faded into a more thoughtful expression featuring a slightly raised eyebrow, and he removed the items, draping the coat and gloves over an arm and carrying the hat, as if…as if he’d just decided he was going to buy them.

 _Oh my god._ He knew. He knew about Yuuri’s kink for old Hollywood-style clothes. _It’s not as if you were exactly hiding it from him,_ he told himself. _Just a few days ago, you put it on full display._ In fact, until then, he hadn’t been aware himself of how deeply it could arouse him, especially with Victor’s appreciation mixed in. But could you really call it a kink? Anyway, did it matter?

Victor was rubbing the material of a glove between a thumb and forefinger, and slanted a teasing look at him. Yuuri looked back down at the table and swore, and heard a soft flutter of laughter. But he was smiling himself. He could suddenly envision them both having fun of a type he’d never anticipated before, and it sent a frisson through him.

He wondered if you ever stopped learning new things about someone, no matter how long you were together. And the ESP had added a whole new dimension. He’d thought Victor was beautiful. But that was his body. Now that he’d seen the very _essence_ of him…circling, mingling… _that_ was who he was. A scintillating white light that drew you toward it and didn’t hurt to look at. Full of love and the comforts of home. He’d never thought it possible to connect with another person like that, and it was perhaps no exaggeration to say that the magic of it would stay with him for the rest of his life. How much more was there yet to discover together?

Those late nights practicing in the loft while Victor had been asleep, with his laptop and a clunky old pair of wireless headphones he’d surreptitiously scavenged from the workshop, had been worth the effort ten times over. At first it was just a fun idea, but later it had had helped him keep hope alive when Victor had been so low. Yuuri had tried to imagine the sexiest moves he could make for him, with the help of tutorials he found on the Cloud, and wondered over and over with a little nervous thrill of anticipation what Victor’s reaction would be. But something unexpected had happened while he was dancing that night; the rhythm and movement had gotten into his bones, and to his amazement, he found himself sinking into the mood and heat with no fear or self-consciousness. Not even a trace. For what might have been the very first time. He’d finally been able to access a deep enough well of trust that those feelings had simply evaporated, and it was…glorious. He’d given himself to the experience with abandon – just like in their shared dream, it suddenly occurred to him. And they’d had that precious moment together, of seeing into each other. Just thinking about it kindled a warm glow inside him now, and he wondered if anything could ever be better.

Maybe life wasn’t so bad, then, despite certain factors that still evaded a solution. Maybe it was kind of nice, in fact. And some of it…He glanced again at Victor, who had picked up and was examining a clunky-looking old scanning device…Some of it was wonderful.

A gleam from the corner of the table caught his eye, and he walked over and saw a pair of silver-colored rings tied together with a piece of twine on which had been threaded a paper tag. Stainless steel, it said, and the price was less than you’d pay for a coat here. Nothing fancy – well, they’d hardly have left them sitting on the table if they were worth much. Yuuri wondered who their previous owners had been, and what if any significance they’d had. When he picked them up for a closer look, he noticed they were engraved inside, not with names but with snowflakes. There was a tiny complete snowflake on the top ring, mirrored by one on the bottom ring. A larger snowflake was split in half between them, so that if you put one on top of the other like this, they made the design whole.

It was ridiculously romantic. Victor would probably love it. And actually…he had to admit that it was sweet. Would they fit, though? He supposed it would be possible to get them sized. When he slipped them over his finger, they felt slightly loose, but wearable for the time being. Should he really…?

He smiled and went to the desk to buy them while Victor had his back turned at another table.

***

“I didn’t know this place existed,” Victor said. “It’s beautiful.”

They were strolling under a canopy of branches bursting with the tender green shoots of spring. The last of the season’s pink cherry-blossom petals floated through the air on the breeze. Having strolled down a gray gravel path for a while, they’d entered a zen garden with a wooden walkway along the side, leading to a lake with little rock-covered islands. There was a small pagoda at the far end, its curling roof made of dark varnished wood. A strip of fine cream-colored sand stretched between the walkway and the water, its flat surface unbroken apart from swirling patterns that had been carefully raked around smooth round stones of varying sizes and colors.

“I discovered it on a trip to the park about a month ago,” Yuuri said as they headed toward the pagoda. “I’ve always liked zen gardens.”

“They’re peaceful. I guess the patterns must mean something, though I’m not sure what.”

“Everything in the garden represents something in nature. The rocks could be mountains, or trees, or animals. The sand could be ripples in water, or…like the white spaces in Japanese paintings, it could symbolize emptiness or distance. Or…” Yuuri paused for thought. “…well, this is just my idea, but the rocks could be stars. The sand could be the universe. It just looks like black nothingness, but there’s radiation passing through it; light, heat…”

“Love,” Victor put in quietly. With a little grin, he took Yuuri’s hand, and they threaded their fingers together as they walked.

Soon they were stepping onto the thick weathered planks that formed the floor of the pagoda. Wooden railings opened onto a view of the water, whose clear glimmering surface reflected the greens and browns of the rocks and plants that fringed it. A robin flitted around a bush nearby, its red breast bright against the earth colors of the garden.

Yuuri stood with his side against the railing, putting down the canvas shopping bag he’d been carrying and shrugging off his backpack. Victor did the same. He began to say something, but Yuuri put up a hand up to halt him.

“I’ve got something,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his fleece while Victor watched curiously. He’d gotten the shopkeeper to snip off the twine binding the rings together, and he took them out and displayed them in the palm of his hand. Victor’s eyes widened.

“I saw these at the antique shop and, um…” This was turning out to be harder than he’d anticipated. “…I thought they might be nice to wear. I…” He made himself look at Victor, who seemed stunned, which wasn’t helping matters. “…I just wanted to say thank you for everything up to now. For supporting me when I was anxious, and coming to find me, and…and standing by me. I know they aren’t silver or anything, but I thought they were pretty…there’s a snowflake inside, if you look.” _And have I just made a colossal mistake? Please tell me you’re OK with this…_

Victor took one and examined the inside of it.

“It looks like they’re the same size,” Yuuri continued. “We could go to the jeweler’s here and get them fitted properly. If…” His voice began to fade. “…if you want.” He gently took Victor’s right hand, which he thought he’d read once was the one Russians preferred to use for wearing rings, and Victor offered no resistance. _You’ll stop me if you don’t like this, right?_ he thought as he slipped the ring he’d been holding onto Victor’s finger. As with him, the fit was slightly loose, but he didn’t think it was in danger of falling off immediately.    

Victor looked down at his finger, his expression unreadable. There was a pause, and then he took Yuuri’s right hand and slid the other ring on him, a small smile crossing his face when he was done. Yuuri’s heart fluttered, and he almost forgot to breathe.

“What a lovely idea, _Zvezda moya_ ,” Victor said softly. “I should say the same things to you. Thank you for staying with me, even when…even when I wasn’t at my best. For everything you’ve taught me.” He ran his fingers down Yuuri’s cheek. “For being you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. _Aishiteru_ , Yuranya _…_ I love you.”

Yuuri’s eyes brimmed with tears. Unable to find words, he surged forward and caught Victor in a long, exuberant kiss. _“Aishiteru_ , Vitenka,” he whispered at last.

***

“Unlike you, I think I might be in danger of losing a toe,” Yuuri said as they walked through the woods near the commune together the following weekend. As always, the large population of fir trees ensured a fragrant mat of brown needles cushioning the path. The day was unusually cool and cloudy, the colors of the trees and sky flat and muted; and they cast no shadows.

“We won’t try anything you’re not ready for,” Victor replied. “You can phase-shift laser-gun fire, can’t you? Maybe that’s enough.”

“I haven’t practiced in a while.” Yuuri stopped, drawing his gun from his pocket and shooting at a tree. The laser shot straight through the trunk, and several trees behind, unimpeded.

“Quick-draw McGraw,” Victor said with a laugh. “You haven’t lost your touch.”

“But like you said before, it’d be better if I could phase-shift my body, not just the gunfire. Then it wouldn’t matter how many people were shooting at me. It’s just…I can’t think of any safe way of testing that it’s worked. Face it, Victor, if we tried to pass anything at all through, say, a toe, and the toe got too solid, it’d hurt like hell, and one of us’d end up in the hospital. And good luck explaining to them what happened. ‘So, sir, tell me again how this pencil lodged itself four centimeters straight into your foot?’ ”

Victor winced. “That’s why I thought gunfire would work best. Because you can see it passing through, but it won’t get stuck.”

“No, it’ll just blow your toe off.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“No,” Yuuri muttered. “But it’s going to be a while before I end up asking you to try to shoot holes through me.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that to me, either.” He took his backpack off, got his carton of water out, and took a swig. Yuuri noticed the ring on his finger as he did. It looked good on him, he thought. They’d both gotten their rings sized in Sonora that day, hanging out in the coffee shop for part of the afternoon while they waited, and practicing blocking people’s chips as they sipped their drinks. They hadn’t actually _discussed_ the rings as such, but Yuuri noticed Victor had been wearing his all the time unless he was doing something especially messy like kneading bread dough. Yuuri wondered if he ought to initiate a conversation about it. But it would involve saying something about a commitment. That was why he couldn’t do it at the pagoda, either. He loved Victor with all his heart, and hoped he felt the same way – thought maybe, just maybe, he did – but that wasn’t the same as saying, “I want to be with you always.” How could they know what the future held while they were still being pursued?

But weren’t these just excuses to avoid trying to find the courage he needed to say the words? Part of him, he realized, still thought he had no right to put a claim on this beautiful, talented man. But a much larger part of him wanted nothing more. He ran his thumb over his own ring and wondered if he ever would find a “right” moment, or if he ought to just –

“We could practice here,” Victor said, shattering his thoughts. “I should be able to see the change in your body if what you’re doing works, though it’d be nice to have some way of measuring it.”

Yuuri pocketed his gun and took his own backpack off. Then an idea struck him. “Do you reckon, when you phase-shift, that you also phase-shift things that are touching you, like clothes?”

“Yes…I think so,” Victor said, his eyes suddenly bright. “My whole body shimmered, you said, when I did it last time?”

“Yeah, it did. So…maybe all we have to do it try to pass an object through another object we’re holding or wearing.”

“Like a coin – ”

“Or a horseshoe.”

“All those things we were practicing with,” Victor said in a rush. “But instead of phase-shifting just the object, you shift your body and see if the object you’re holding is carried along with it, so to speak.” He gave Yuuri a delighted smile. “Dr. Katsuki, you’re inspired.” He opened a pocket of his backpack and began to search through it.

Yuuri blushed and grinned in return. “What are – ” he began.

A loud bang rang through the woods.

They spun around at the same time, to spy a shadowy figure some way back, in a shooting stance. “Drop your weapons and don’t move!” a deep male voice shouted.

Adrenaline spiked through Yuuri’s system as he shouldered his backpack and sprinted forward, Victor doing the same. They both had their guns in hand the next instant, turning to try and stun the person who was trailing them; another had joined him. More bangs rang out into the woods.

Anger was foremost over fear as Yuuri ran. Somehow he knew this day would come. The longer they’d stayed here, the more likely it had been. But…how dare they. How fucking _dare_ they. Do this to him; to Victor. Keep after them like this, keep hunting them down. When they’d never harmed anyone and just wanted to live their lives. Together. He aimed another stunning shot behind him and missed again. There were more explosions.

“They’re not using laser guns,” Victor huffed beside him. His voice had a strange faraway quality, like the echo in a cavern, and Yuuri looked and saw that his body was shimmering. _More_ than shimmering. He could see tall dark shapes through him, particularly where his pale skin and hair were. The trees on the other side of him, as if Victor was nothing but a ghost. Yuuri forced down all the uncomfortable feelings it evoked in him and told himself it was the best thing for Victor to be doing right now. And it was what they’d come for Yuuri to try to do, too. Only, he couldn’t. Not yet; he needed more practice. But there wasn’t time.

 _Concentrate, concentrate,_ he told himself. But even if he’d still been standing calmly in the clearing, it would have been difficult. He tried it now. Forced the agents out of his mind, told himself he was simply on a fitness run. But none of it worked. If he could hold his nerve, he might be able to phase-shift the ammunition heading his way. But he was not going to be able to copy Victor, not today.

“They know we can disable laser guns,” he breathed in response to Victor’s comment. “It sounds like they have old-fashioned guns. I can still phase-shift the bullets, maybe – I’ll try.” He fired again behind them, and missed. This was something else he should have been practicing out here in the woods – his aim.

Victor turned to fire too, as his long legs continued to propel him forward with smooth, quick strides. The white electricity from the stun setting had a curious look…it shimmered, like the heat haze over the horizon on a summer’s day.

“Try blasting a hole through a tree,” Yuuri told him. Victor switched the setting on his gun, aimed and fired – and the watery blue light passed harmlessly through the trunk. “Shit.”

“It’s shifted just like me…there’s the answer to your question.”

“I’ll try to keep us covered.” _As if that’s going to make any difference. I can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn._

“If there are only those two back there, maybe we can get away.” Victor took several breaths. “Where should we – ”

Then two more agents were upon them, one from the left and one from the right a little ahead, as if they were taking their cue in a coordinated attack. The outrage Yuuri had initially been flooded with died to a trickle, and stark cold fear coursed through his veins. These people were yelling too, telling them to stop and drop their weapons. Yuuri fired again and missed. Several gunshots went off in quick succession. He wasn’t hit, though it was impossible to know if they’d simply missed him, or if he was succeeding with phase-shifting the bullets; there was no way to see them flying through the air. Once again he aimed, targeting the agent closest to them, to his left, and fired – and hit his target this time. The man fell, stunned and out cold. He felt a momentary surge of satisfaction; but there were three others pursuing them still, one of them less than ten meters away at a guess.

“Run, goddamn it, run,” he gasped out, more to himself than to Victor, as they flew down the path. The breeze blew through his hair, but he was covered in sweat and felt chilled at the same time. He wondered if Victor was deliberately holding his pace back so that he could stay with him. His legs were longer, and Yuuri knew he could sprint faster.

“I _am_ running,” Victor said. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“You might have to.”

Victor shot him a look of horror. “Never.”

“Look, Victor, I – ”

“Anyway,” he said over him, taking a breath between every few words, “they can’t stop us, can they? They can’t shoot either of us. If we can outrun them…”

“We’ll be home free,” Yuuri finished for him, feeling a sudden spark of power. _They can’t shoot either of us._ All he needed to do was keep concentrating and phase-shifting their ammunition. The agents would run out of it eventually. And they’d get tired. A flame of hope leaped in his chest.

“Drop it, Victor,” called yet another voice, as an agent appeared from ahead and off to the right, as if he’d been waiting to ambush them.

Less afraid now, Yuuri aimed at the agent and missed. He saw the man point a gun straight at him; an explosion rang out, and there was a loud thunk as the bullet embedded itself in a tree behind him.

“Jesus Christ,” he heard the man say as he stood and stared.

“I could’ve killed you at the commune,” Victor shouted at him. “I spared your life, Adam. Let us go.”

He aimed at Victor. “Your mistake. I’m sorry.” Another bang ripped through the silence of the forest, but if the bullet’s aim was true, it didn’t injure either of them. They didn’t miss a stride. Yuuri fired, and this time hit his mark. Two down. Three to go.

“Maybe what you’re doing is better,” Victor said, gasping for breath. “It means you can use your gun. I’ll – ”  He cried out mid-sentence, and Yuuri turned his head to find that he’d stumbled and dropped his gun; he was slowing to a halt with his arms wrapped around his stomach, as if he’d been kicked there – or shot. But there was no blood.

“Victor!” he shouted. But before he had a chance to make sense of what was happening, he felt it too – an agonizing, nauseating pain in his gut, like someone had pounded him there with a sledgehammer. He slowed as Victor had, clutching an arm around his front, but hung on to his gun. Doubled over as he was, he managed to lift his eyes and scan the area ahead; but what he saw made him moan in fear and pain. Crow, in his customary denim, brown mane of hair flowing behind him, was casually walking down a hill ahead and to the left.

“Had enough yet?” he called.

There was none of the silkiness in his voice that Yuuri remembered. It had a harsh, angry edge to it. Yuuri thought, through a haze of pain, that with all the times they’d eluded him, his pride must have taken a dent. It was going to have to take another one now. He aimed his gun and fired – but it erupted in a glowing silver shower, and he tossed it away like a hot coal.

“I can do it too,” Crow snapped at him. “Did you honestly think I couldn’t?”

The guns had silenced when Crow appeared, as if the agents were waiting to see what transpired. Yuuri glanced around at Victor. He looked as sick as Yuuri felt. They had to pull themselves together, attack Crow, run – _something_ …

Victor, solid again, had begun to reach for his gun lying on the ground, but Crow turned his dark gaze his way and disabled it in another shower of sparks. While he was distracted, Yuuri tried to focus on gathering energy in his abdomen. He already knew it was going to be a weak effort, because he couldn’t think through the pain. But he had to try. When he felt it there inside, waiting, he launched it.

Surprise crossed Crow’s face, and he stopped and blenched, then shot Yuuri a searing look. “You’ll have to do better than that, amigo,” he said, resuming his pace as he approached.

“Victor – ” Yuuri began as he turned to look behind him. He’d been planning to suggest he try sending energy at Crow too, or they do it together. But what he saw made the words die in his mouth. Victor opened a portal the size of a full-length mirror right in front of him; and he instantly recognized it, from its surroundings, as the one in his dream. His throat constricted and he began to shake.

Victor cried out in pain again, this time falling to the ground. He looked up and bit out, “ _Run,_ Yuuri.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

At the same time, he heard Crow shout at the agents, “Kill him!” All of them began to raise their guns – at Yuuri.

Without further thought, he jumped into the portal, and instantly turned around, hardly registering the gray fog inside. He was looking back out through the oval at Victor on the ground. Crow might still be coming toward him, but Yuuri couldn’t see him in his limited field of vision. The agents had their guns raised – but now they were pointing them at Victor. No sound from outside the portal reached Yuuri where he was.

 _“Victor!”_ he screamed, lunging forward, though exiting would surely mean nothing more than his own death. In that moment he didn’t care. He had to get to Victor.

The portal shrank and disappeared in front of him in an instant. He was falling forward…into nothing. There was some kind of surface stopping his motion, but he couldn’t feel his impact on it. The haze around him was absolute.

“No!” He scrambled to his feet, looking around frantically. But he might as well have had his eyes closed. It was like standing in the heart of a dense rain cloud, only it didn’t feel moist. He spun around, desperately trying to spot something, anything. He had to get out of here; he _had_ to get to Victor. Running a little way ahead, his feet making no noise, he called his name over and over, his voice raising on a stronger note of panic each time, though it was swallowed by the heavy atmosphere. Soon he couldn’t tell where he’d started from. There was no direction here…only gray. And despair.

Yuuri yelled Victor’s name once more, his voice choking off into loud sobs as he covered his mouth with his hands and his wide fearful eyes gazed upon nothing. His body wracked with weeping, he fell to his knees, the words “Victor” and “no” spilling from his lips. Victor could be dead. He might die here himself.

If he did, he deserved it, he thought. Running away like a coward. He’d been completely fucking useless. To them both. How long would he sit here like this before whatever it was inside of him that kept him alive finally decided it was time to give up? Maybe the gray would just go on forever…

No. He could try re-opening the portal himself. Victor had said it was the equivalent of phase-shifting the empty air. He concentrated on an area in front of him. Continued to do so for what must have been several minutes, though whether time actually had any meaning here, wherever _here_ was, there was no knowing. But nothing was happening. He persevered. Nothing. This _had_ to work. Try…after try…after try. Not so much as a flash of blue. Maybe it wasn’t even possible to do this from the inside. Maybe it took someone on the outside to get you out. Maybe he really was stuck here.

And regardless – by now, Victor could be…

God, no. He couldn’t think about it. 

Yuuri lay down on his side and curled up, not caring where he was, and cried until his heart ached with it; until it felt like his very essence was spilling out of him. Losing Victor was the only thing that mattered. There _was_ nothing else. The face of the man he loved gazed at him in his mind with those placid blue eyes, and he couldn’t bear it, and sobbed, even though there were no more physical tears left to shed.

Victor’s words echoed in his head. _Thank you for staying with me, even when…even when I wasn’t at my best. For everything you’ve taught me. For being you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before._ Aishiteru, _Yuranya…I love you._

“Victor,” Yuuri whispered, his voice shaking. “Please, no…please.” He was torn in two. The pain was worse than anything Crow could ever torture him with.

His thoughts deserted him. There was nothing but _being_ , and he didn’t want to _be_. It hurt too much.

Silent gray waves. Drifting. His eyes closed, he saw Victor, and his heart heaved. His eyes opened, and there was the endless expanse.

_Help me._

He sobbed quietly, his throat dry and raw, eyes hot and swollen. Unconsciously, the fingers of his left hand stroked the finger on his right that wore his snowflake ring.

His eyes had been open for a while before his brain registered that there were now subtle flashes of color penetrating the gray. Or rather, the gray seemed to be clearing very slightly in a few places. Like…looking out an airplane window as it dropped slowly down from the clouds, the misty scraps trailing away to reveal the landscape below.

And as he sat up and watched in bewilderment, his own location had begun to reveal itself. There were gaps above, showing bright blue sky. Further downward, looming vertical shapes tinged with dark green. Darker gray to his right. Below and around him…something light. What kind of ground was as light as this?

Where _was_ he?

_[Good day, Katsuki Yuuri. You’re safe here.]_

Yuuri jerked his head around as his eyes scanned through the heavy gray that still draped most of his surroundings. But he neither saw nor heard anyone. The understanding, such as it was, had been sent rather than spoken. And they’d used his name…how? He hadn’t thought that was possible.  

_[Who are you?]_

The gray steadily burned away under a sparkling sun. He knew this place…There was the wooden walkway, to his left, and…yes, the pagoda in the distance. Tall trees, smooth rocks, the glassy lake, creamy sand. He looked down to discover he was sitting _in_ the sand himself. There were…ripples around him, as if he were one of the rocks. A shiver traveled down his back at the weird sight, and he stood up.

_[Careful. You don’t want to disrupt the harmony of the universe, after all.]_

He dusted sand off his jeans. It felt real enough. Realer than real, even, as if he could feel the grit of every grain that passed through his fingers. And now as the last vestiges of gray disappeared from the air, the colors of the zen garden kindled and flamed to life; for this was identical to the one in Sonora, though it was so very, very alive…the sky a turquoise sea, the sun a sparkling diamond, the trees impossibly green. Cherry blossoms fluttered down through the air, such a bright whitish-pink it was almost luminous. As he breathed, Yuuri took in their scent, though he hadn’t realized they actually had one; surely it was so mild as to be undetectable? But not here. The air was perfumed with mingling notes of lilac and rose, vanilla and almond. Water trickled gently somewhere nearby, and birds chirped in the bushes.

Something made him turn toward the walkway, and his heart missed a beat when he saw a figure standing where he was sure it hadn’t been a moment ago. It seemed to emit a faint glow but was otherwise solid; a young woman with her hands resting on the railing, looking back at him with a pleasant regard. She was Japanese, her long brown hair braided around her head and gathered at the back in a bushy ponytail. Pale and slender, with a long graceful neck, she wore white slacks and sandals, and a thigh-length sky-blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A silver heart-shaped necklace lay over her chest.

Yuuri thought he recognized her from family pictures he’d seen, but he knew he must be mistaken. She bore a remarkable resemblance to his mother’s mother. But he didn’t remember ever having met her; she’d died in her early sixties of cystic fibrosis before the breakthroughs in genetic therapy had eliminated that disease and many others. Most of her adult life had been spent in a wheelchair, if the photographs were anything to go by. This woman was possibly younger than him, however, and looked like she could sprint away and never stop running if she so desired.

_[You’re not wrong.]_

He stared at her. _[But…how?]_ Then he came to himself. It didn’t matter who she was. What place he was in. He needed to get back to where he’d been; needed to find Victor, and get him away from Crow and the others. If he was still alive. He felt a stab through his heart at the thought.

_[No one’s in any danger. Not you. Not him. Be calm.]_

_Be calm?_ He ran across the sand, which flew in a flurry around his feet as they dug a series of sacrilegious ragged holes. When he arrived at the walkway, he grabbed the railing and hoisted himself up and over, and stood across from the woman, who blinked but said nothing.

“How can you know that?” he said in Japanese. “Victor was in trouble when I left him. The agents were aiming guns at him. Crow – ”

_[You were wondering how I, your grandmother who died of a long illness when you were five, could be standing here like this. Maybe you could consider the possibility that I might know some things you don’t.]_

Yuuri realized his jaw was hanging open, and he snapped it shut. Then he said, “You…you _are_ my grandmother?”

_[Nishimura Sayo. Yes. This is how I appeared when I was twenty years old.]_

He knew it was rude, but Yuuri stared. What she was claiming was impossible, of course. He also couldn’t work out how she was sending names via ESP.

_[Use it with me yourself, and you’ll see. This is the best way of communicating here. Spoken words are so clumsy and slow, in any language.]_

_[All right. Prove that you’re my grandmother.]_

A series of images flashed through his mind. It was like an animated photo album from her point of view, showing memories of when his mother was little, right through her marriage and the birth of Yuuri and his sister. It should have taken hours to experience, and maybe it did; but it felt like it had all gone by in an instant.

_[It’s grieved me to see how alienated everyone in your family has been from each other. But I understand. I’ve wanted to reach out to you for a long time, but was never able to catch your attention. The shaman Onawa tried to tell you. I was hoping you might listen to her.]_

Yuuri was still reeling from watching living images of himself as a young child. He tried to refocus. _[The ancestral spirit she mentioned?]_

He felt a wave of happiness ripple from her. _[So you do remember.]_

Her eyes were big and brown…like his own. They shone bright with life and wisdom beyond her outwardly youthful appearance. Yuuri realized that if he’d looked into his heart and trusted what he’d found, there would have been no need for her to show him the visions from the past. He would’ve believed her without them.

 _[People would come to much less grief if they learned to do that. They’d discover things to be much, much easier.]_ Yuuri got the impression she was chuckling, though her face remained calm and still.

“Victor – ” he said aloud.

_[Is currently in no danger. If your heart trusts who I am, can it trust what I tell you?]_

Yuuri considered for a moment. What choice did he have? But he sent his consciousness deep down and searched his feelings. Eventually he gave her a nod and leaned against the railing next to him, not content with standing here like this, but relieved of the black despair that had washed through him at the thought of Victor’s possible fate.

_[Your love for him is a credit to you.]_

_[I need to see him. I have to help him.]_

_[Please…try to be patient. I’ve waited a long time to communicate with you like this. Don’t you like it here? It’s pretty, isn’t it?]_

Yuuri pressed his lips together in frustration. Be patient, she’d said. In other circumstances, he was sure he would be filled with awe by this experience. But now… _[It looks like the zen garden in Sonora, but I don’t think it is,]_ he sent, to make her happy, though he wasn’t in the mood for light conversation.

_[You think I don’t appreciate the suffering you’ve been through, worrying about Victor?]_

He caught his breath. _Was_ he breathing here? Yes, as he had been since he’d arrived. This place had a physical reality of some kind. His grandmother’s face never lost its composure, but there was a spark in her eyes now.

_[Time as you understand it doesn’t exist here, Katsuki Yuuri. No need to worry that you’re missing out on anything.]_

_[I’m sorry…How do you send names like that?]_

_[I can do more than send names.]_ A new series of images flashed in his mind, like a slideshow, and he seemed to hear the name of every place he saw. His and Victor’s house at the Elkhorn Project. The Palomar Observatory. The Longfellow Bridge in Boston. St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

 _[How?]_ Yuuri sent, his eyes wide in wonder.

 _[You’re right that this isn’t the garden in Sonora. That appearance was chosen as something familiar and comforting to you. When you and Victor do the phase-shifting, as you call it, what you’re really doing is moving from one plane of existence into another; you can call them dimensions if you want. This is also what the portal does. The dimensions you’ve had access to through it, had you known it, have been random. It might be possible for you to control which ones you open, in time, if you learn; and each dimension has different things to offer. Though humans can only exist in most of them for short periods, as they’re incompatible with the physical laws in those places, like an astronaut without a spacesuit. There are a few you could find, if you looked, where you could safely stay for as long as you wanted.]_ A smile played across her lips. _[You’ll have to decide what, if anything, you want to do about that. Seems to me you’ve got a full plate to deal with as it is.]_

Yuuri felt his natural sense of curiosity awakening. He couldn’t help it. _[So this dimension is more compatible with ESP?]_

There was a sparkle of amusement in her eyes. _[You could say so.]_

_[Names. Images. Everything’s so…sharp and fast. Easier. Lighter.]_

_[ESP, spirit, the sight, psychic powers…there are many names for it. The spoken word suffices for the material dimension you live in, though it’s heavy and limited. Just like your body is the vessel for your true essence. You’ve already caught a glimpse beyond the façade, you and Victor. But you and I are standing here like this now, in our bodies, in a garden, because it’s what you’re used to. I’m not implying that you’d be unable to take in a more accurate representation of the reality here…just that you’ve been through a difficult experience, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate another shock.]_

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “No, it wasn’t a shock at all to be stuck in a gray cloud while Victor had agents aiming guns at him,” he muttered, his gaze wandering to the lake. The lake that perhaps wasn’t there at all, full of koi that also weren’t there, and glimmering with reflections of things that didn’t exist. Then a thought struck him. “You…” _[You weren’t the person in my dream about the portal, were you? Telling me to look behind me?]_

That mysterious little smile again. _[Well, you see, I was hoping you’d come here eventually. I foresaw a time when you might do it out of desperation. So did Victor. He wasn’t consciously aware of this, but he knew in his heart that travel through the portal was possible – though, scientist that he is, he wouldn’t have allowed either of you to try it outside of a lab unless there was no other choice. I gave him some help with opening the portal to this dimension, where it’s possible to be with those who have passed on. And you also had a feeling it was safe to come here, though in your dreams your mind kept throwing out fears about this unknown…anomaly, I suppose you’d call it. By telling you to look behind you, I was hoping you’d see the reason for why you were entering the portal. There’s nothing to be frightened of here. Do you fear me?]_

Yuuri shook his head. No, he wasn’t afraid of this place, or of her. All of his fears were centered around something else. Continuing to watch the bright orange, white and blue fish dart in the lake, he said, “I need to know what happened to Victor. Tell me. Please.”

There was a pause, and then she sent, _[The last thing he did before they stunned him was shut the portal so no one could come in after you. He wasn’t able to concentrate enough to make himself incorporeal again.]_

Yuuri turned to face her. “They stunned him…they didn’t hurt him?” He was forgetting to use the ESP, though his grandmother was right – it really was quicker and easier.

_[They wanted him back. His abilities, his mind.]_

_[I can’t see how that would work now. He knows the truth about the Institute.]_

_[I’ll explain. Would you like to walk with me while I do?]_

Yuuri’s eyes scanned the walkway to the pagoda at the far side of the lake. _[No, thanks. It makes me think of the day Victor and I exchanged rings.]_ He touched the silver band on his finger. _[It hurts to do that right now.]_ He wondered where Victor was. Had they taken him prisoner? Were they forcing him to do things at gunpoint? Could his grandmother help him get him back somehow?

 _[So many questions,]_ she sent. _[I’ll try to explain. This won’t be easy for you to know, but Willow was the one who betrayed you to the Institute.]_

Yuuri stared at her as his stomach lurched. _“What?”_

_[She has a peculiar talent. She already hinted at it to you.]_

Yuuri shook his head in confusion. “What the hell did she do? Why?”

Instead of being sent an understanding, he saw a vision of Willow with her three children going about their lives in a nice apartment in…he saw the Statue of Liberty…in New York City. Though Willow didn’t look any happier than she had the last time he’d seen her at the commune. She was preoccupied almost constantly, with circles under her eyes. He watched her digging deep to find the energy and enthusiasm to interact with her children; but when she was by herself, she looked haggard and drawn. Clearly, the move to the city hadn’t dispelled the shadows in her life.

As the images faded, he felt that he was looking a little further back in time. She’d gone to a big city to visit a friend. A city on the ocean…and this time the landmark Yuuri saw was the Coronado Bay Bridge. San Diego. She’d seen an electronic billboard with a picture of himself and Victor exiting a store in what he recognized as the town of Del Dios, where they’d been spotted while they were staying at the Hotel El Bosque. An external security camera they’d missed, just before they’d worked out how to make themselves invisible to them all. _Have you seen these fugitives?_ appeared in big white letters at the top of the billboard. And then at the bottom: _They’re armed and dangerous. In the event of an encounter, do not approach, but call this number immediately. $500,000 reward for successful capture._ The agents had obviously thought he and Victor might have tried to lose themselves among the many inhabitants of the conurbation. And…a half-million-dollar price on their heads? Jesus Christ.

_[Not enough to make someone wealthy overnight, but a substantial sum, yes. You both were long gone from the area, but they continued to show the advertisement in the hope that someone who knew or had seen something would eventually come forward. And, of course, Willow recognized you. She appreciated your kindness toward her and thought of you as a…nice jack. But as you sensed yourself, there’s a darkness inside of her that she’s struggled to master most of her life. Fear can drive good people to do terrible things, Yuuri…She’d expressed her concerns to you about her future and that of her children, and couldn’t resist the lure of the reward money as a solution. So she called the number, and was visited by agents from the Institute. They promised – at first – to resettle her in her old community in San Diego, with more money and a better life, in exchange for her cooperation. But once she began to give it, they relocated her to New York, where she’s been made to go to their lab and use her ESP, as you call it. She’s been told that if she tries to abscond, she and her children will be hunted down.]_

Yuuri saw more visions of the scenes his grandmother was describing, one melting and blending into the next. A desperate ray of hope in Willow’s heart overriding a sickening sense of guilt about what she was doing, though Yuuri wasn’t any closer to understanding why life at the commune felt so frightening to her. _Most_ things seemed to cause her anxiety, he suddenly realized, whether or not they were based on any kind of logic or reality; and through her, Yuuri caught a disturbing glimpse of what it must feel like to live under an intense version of his own problem. In a kind of fast-forward sequence, he watched the momentary sense of relief and control Willow had experienced quickly eroding as she was questioned, given orders, put on a plane and sent to the east coast with her children. He saw her walking through white corridors with her hands in her pockets, and sensed the regret in her heart, locked as she was now on a path of her own choosing that she’d soon realized had been a mistake.  

_[What’s this special talent she has? What have they got her doing in New York? And what’s happening with Victor?]_

_[I can show you, if you want to see.]_

_[Yes.]_

Willow was sitting on a hard metal chair in a plain white windowless room. Yuuri’s heart lurched as he watched Crow enter, the burning coals of his eyes fixed on her. It was the work of moments to break her down and worm her secrets out of her. Yuuri was revolted to sense his disappointment at just how easy it was. He liked a challenge, apparently.  

Another windowless room, larger this time, with a scattering of tech across countertops. Willow was standing stiffly, in jeans and a pink sweater, as…as _Victor_ entered, dressed as he was the last time Yuuri had seen him, with Crow immediately behind, pointing an old-fashioned black metal gun into his back. With a flash of understanding, followed by a swell of pride, Yuuri realized that this was the only person in the compound who could keep Victor in check, and deal with him if he attempted to phase-shift himself. They’d rushed him here to Willow, where…what? Yuuri wondered, with a stab in the pit of his stomach. What were they planning to do with him?

Willow had a device of some kind, small enough to fit inside her hand. Before Victor had a chance to react, she grabbed his arm and held it against him, and his eyes glazed over and he slumped. She and Crow pulled him into another of those metallic chairs. Yuuri continued to look on, full of helpless rage, as Willow put a hand on the back of Victor’s head and tilted it upright. He looked at her woozily, his gaze falling further into blank thoughtlessness as she stared back at him, hardly blinking.

Yuuri was about to demand to be told what was happening; but the vision quickly segued forward into one of Victor exiting a small operating theater. He looked…completely at ease and unconcerned. Pleased, even. In his usual work clothes, with a white lab coat and surgeon’s mask, which he pulled down over his chin as he spoke to someone who seemed to be an assistant. Again, an understanding came to Yuuri without words. This was the Institute in New York, and Victor had resumed his duties here, inserting the blocking chip and conducting research. Yuuri’s heart went out to him – but felt as if it were being met with nothing but a concrete wall. He saw flashes of Victor carrying out routines that were usual and well known to him, unrestrained and unthreatened. Not once did a crease of concern cross his brow…apart from moments of frustration when he felt like leaving the compound but remembered he’d been told not to, for his own good. His life seemed so…sterile, somehow. He was alone much of the time. In order to do what he was doing, he must have a chip in his head, but it didn’t seem to bother him. There was nothing in his behavior that suggested he felt like a prisoner. If he thought about Yuuri, he gave no indication of it.

Yuuri struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. _[It’s like he’s forgotten.]_  

_[He has. This is what Willow did to him. He’s forgotten his time with you, and he thinks he’s living his life as normal. They’ve told him he has amnesia because of hitting his head in a fall.]_

Yuuri stared at his grandmother in horror. How had Willow done it? Was it permanent? Had he lost Victor after all?

_[Be thankful Crow didn’t have everything his way before this happened. He’s not in charge there like he wishes he could be, and Victor has friends at the Institute, or at least people who would rather not see him hurt. They had him taken to Willow immediately. Crow had been planning to interrogate him first, without mercy, and Victor would not have been able to tell him what the portal was or what had happened to you inside.]_

_[Can it be reversed?]_

Her face clouded momentarily. _[Possibly. It depends on many things.]_

Yuuri gripped the wooden railing next to him, containing a wave of frustration. “What do you mean, _possibly_? Don’t you know?”

_[I’m not omniscient, Yuuri, however much you wish I were. I can’t predict everything that’s going to happen. People have free will and can change the course of events by their decisions. That’s how it’s supposed to be.]_

He hitched the straps of his backpack. “Then I need to find Willow; find out what she did to Victor and how it can be undone.” _Though I don’t know how,_ he added silently. _Or how I’m going to get around Crow. He’s so strong…_

 _[And yet you’ve fought him off several times. What’s more, he’s not always there, waiting to get you when you least expect it. Remember, he’s just as human as you.]_ She paused, giving him a little smile. _[Have you ever thought that you might be causing him some moments of doubt and fear?]_

“Me?” Yuuri said with a laugh. “I don’t think so.”

He was shown an image of a cocoon opening, and a brilliant blue butterfly emerging. _[Don’t underestimate your own abilities. You have the potential to achieve a great deal. I’ve been wanting to tell you this for years. You already have ideas for how you could research and develop your ESP, with the help of friends and loved ones. You know how you’d shape the future if you could.]_

A montage of visions trailed through Yuuri’s head. People in cities and in the countryside. Forming small interdependent communities where they knew and took care of each other. Worked nearby or in their own houses, and visited and talked. It reminded him of the Elkhorn Project. And instead of a chip in their brain, they wore a device on their ear or around their wrist that really could be turned off, or removed.

 _[And maybe even…]_ He could feel the amusement in his grandmother as hoverboards were added to the visions. No longer top-secret military devices used by agents with guns, almost everybody had one. People surfed them through the skies and stored them in their houses when they weren’t using them. Despite everything, Yuuri laughed.

 _“Bwanji, kafundisha,”_ called a voice from behind suddenly, and Yuuri spun around to see another woman walking towards him. She appeared to be about thirty, with bronze skin, long dark brown tresses loosely fastened with hair sticks at the back, and dangly orange earrings. A dress, tight at the bodice, draped in folds from her waist down to her ankles; it had patterns of light brown-gray triangles in vertical stripes, interspersed with blocks of mahogany. A small fringed orange scarf adorned her neck. She was barefoot. Yuuri felt positive he’d never met her before in his life.

 _[But you have,]_ she sent with a smile. _[You do know me, just like I know you, teacher. You had a nickname for me, though I didn’t know it at the time.]_ She stopped once she arrived at his grandmother’s side, her face lit with a happy glow. _[Bubbles. Nice of you. Very sweet!]_

Yuuri stared in awe. This was _Bubbles_? But Bubbles was…

 _[Dead, yes. And, as you can see, no.]_ She let out a cackling laugh. _[Pretty good, huh? I was fifty-six when that idiot killed me. But now I can look any way I like.]_

It was magnificent, Yuuri thought. _She_ was magnificent. All this time, he’d thought…well, he didn’t know. Death had felt like a more permanent, destructive thing than this. How could he ever have expected to discover she still existed, let alone that he’d be able to meet her?

Feeling suddenly overcome, Yuuri surged forward and embraced her, finding her to be as substantial as a flesh-and-blood person. _[I thought you were gone. It was terrible, what happened. I missed you.]_

She laughed and hugged him back. _[I love you too, sugar. Just remember – Chimwemwe Kamanga isn’t going anywhere. I’ll always be here, with your grandmother, and others who have passed on.]_ She pulled away to look at him. _[You did so much for me. Don’t stop. People need you. And Victor. And others. More can be awakened, and taught. Just imagine what life could be, if people like us were given the chance to learn and grow. What a wonderful world we’d make, eh?]_

_[I wish you could still be in it.]_

_[I have other things to do here. This is an amazing place. You’ll find out one day. In the meantime, you have a lot to do.]_

Yuuri looked at the two women in front of him, so very different from each other, and yet with so much in common. _[I don’t know if I can. I think your faith in me is unjustified.]_ He wasn’t sure who he was sending it to. Both of them, if it was possible.

 _[You could stay here,]_ his grandmother informed him. _[You’re under no obligation to return. All you’d need to do is follow me.]_

 _[No,]_ Yuuri answered immediately. Then, to Bubbles – Chimwemwe – _[You’re right, I have a lot to do. Or try to do. I have to go back. Though…]_ He looked again at them both. _[…I’m just one person. I get anxious. I fu – I screw up. Against the Institute; the CIA, even – what chance do I stand? What good is trying if it just means I’m walking to my death?]_

His grandmother smiled at him, but what she sent was an echo of his own words, from a different time and place.

_…Like Pandora’s box. Without hope, what have you got left?_

_[You know the answer yourself, Yuuri; you knew it then.]_

_[Never doubt it,]_ Bubbles sent. _[Even in your darkest moments. That’s when you need it most.]_

Yuuri wished he could feel as positive as they did. But their very faith seemed to bolster him.

 _[Fine. I’m going to get Victor, and then…I’ll see what I can do.]_ Well _that_ wouldn’t exactly go down as a great inspirational speech, would it? He thought for a moment, then set his lips in a determined line. _[I’m going to break open the surveillance state and make sure everyone knows what the government’s been doing. I’m going to show them that ESP is real, and what it can do. I won’t spend my life running away anymore.]_ A tremor of fear ran through him. It was easy to tell himself that. How it was to be accomplished…that was another matter. And would Victor want to stay by his side, especially with the dangers involved?

 _[Find your courage, Katsuki Yuuri,]_ his grandmother sent. _[And…there’s another person you can trust, who you haven’t met yet.]_

Yuuri saw in his mind a blond green-eyed man in black clothes lurking in the bushes and trees fringing some kind of compound. _[He looks like an agent.]_

_[This is Chris.]_

_[But…the only Chris I can think of is the one Victor said he shared an apartment with in New York City.]_

_[That’s him.]_

_[What’s he doing?]_

_[It doesn’t matter. Just know that he can help you.]_

_[I…OK. Thank you.]_ The women were looking at him expectantly now. _[I should go.]_

 _[My blessings go with you,]_ Bubbles sent.

 _[And mine,]_ his grandmother added. _[Remember, I’m always willing to help, if I can. Just think about me.]_

_[Should…should I set up a butsudan?]_

_[Not unless you want to. It’s the thinking that’s important.]_

“OK.” He returned their steady gazes, then gave each of them a long hug in turn. He didn’t know any more about how to get out of here than he had when he’d arrived, or where or when he would end up if he did; but he had a feeling these women could help somehow.

And yet he still couldn’t suppress a shudder when he thought about what he would be headed back to, willingly…like a lamb to the slaughter.

 _[Or a warrior going to battle,]_ his grandmother sent. _[Can you imagine that instead?]_

 _[No,]_ was the honest answer. _[But I’ll try.]_

The Lady of the Lake’s arm hadn’t emerged from the water to hand him Excalibur. He didn’t have plate mail or a horse. But…he had the blessings of these two remarkable women.

Maybe it was enough.


	65. Chapter 65

_No one ever gets one up on me for long. I’ll find a way. Wait and see if I don’t._

Crow trained a pair of bored eyes on his tablet. The good doctor, helping another patient, as he saw it. It ought to have been satisfying just to know that the man was oblivious to the fact that there was nothing wrong with the jack he was operating on, other than that he had spirit-sight and had been assessed as enough of a potential danger to convince him to come in for the operation of his own accord. Job almost done, everybody happy.

Apart from himself. He wouldn’t be satisfied until Nikiforov’s corpse was lying in front of him – with Katsuki’s next to it. Nothing else would do.

Watching an operation like this was about as exciting as watching paint dry. So he watched the doctor himself for a while. Maybe he could understand, now, what Yuuri saw in him, though he wasn’t Crow’s type. Still…very fit, very striking. They’d told him he’d bumped his head and developed amnesia, and he’d believed them. Had told him they wanted him to stay here in the compound to keep an eye on him, rather than letting him go out to his apartment. It’s temporary, they said. What a ridiculous, convoluted fuss. It would have been so much easier just to kill him and not bring him back here at all. They claimed he was a genius and they wanted to continue to make use of his talents. Well, he might be intelligent, but he wasn’t the only person in the world with a brain. And he was useless without his ESP, now that he had his own blocking chip sitting inside his head.

Crow had been intensely curious about that. He’d obviously developed some interesting abilities – him and Yuuri both. From the moment he’d nabbed the doctor in the woods, all he could think about was getting him to a secure room where he could interrogate him to his heart’s content, wreck him, and then send the mess back to Yuuri as a present. It would’ve been a dream come true. The only thing even better would have been if they’d gotten Yuuri, too.

But no. Instead, his orders had been to take the doctor straight to that weak little scrap of a woman so she could do her thing. He’d been told not to harass Nikiforov at any point. Just who was calling all the shots, Crow didn’t know, but they were coming from high up and he couldn’t argue. And he’d been furious.

The doctor had started to come around from the stun-shot he’d received while they were still in the car. This one had a driver, and Crow had been put in the passenger seat, while Nikiforov was in the back with Agent Lafaye, who had recovered earlier from being stunned himself. Honestly, he might as well just paint a big red bull’s eye on his chest, for all the times they gotten him. It was almost funny.

Crow had been wondering if Lafaye might spout some corny cliché when the doctor awoke. _Don’t try any funny business, or I’ll fill you so full of lead you’ll look like a Swiss cheese…We have ways of making you talk…_ No, Crow had reminded himself, they weren’t allowed to use those. _I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. It’s not personal, it’s strictly business._ He almost laughed out loud. But he was in for a disappointment.

“Just sit still, Victor,” Adam told him. “I’ve got a gun. But if you try to do that…whatever it was you did, back in the woods…you can see how fast we’re traveling, and I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“Did Yuuri – ”

“He got swallowed up by that thing you made. He never came out. What did you do, anyway?”

But Victor was silent, and not another word was spoken.

Crow checked the rear-view mirror. Their prisoner was sitting docile, his hands cuffed and resting on his thighs. Looking down in a forlorn kind of way. He’d lost his lap dog, after all. Crow wanted to know exactly what had happened to him. Well, he could take a few pokes and see if the stick hit home. The other two gonks in the car wouldn’t know what he was up to.

_[Tell me what you did.]_

Nikiforov didn’t even flinch.

_[Tell me where he is. How you did that.]_

Still no response.

_[TELL ME.]_

Cool as a cucumber. Well, he’d fix that.

_[I’m giving you one warning. Start talking, or I’m going to hurt you. Just give me a reason. You know how good I am at it.]_

The blue eyes glanced up for a moment, then dropped again.

 _The fucking nerve._ Well, he would enjoy this. He gathered enough energy, he calculated, to cause discomfort without making him yell out and alert the other agents that Crow was doing things he shouldn’t. It was quickly ready, and he launched it.

Nothing happened.

He sat, stunned, for a moment. Nikiforov and Katsuki had been so easy to bring down in the woods. But…they’d been distracted. That was always a surefire way of getting through somebody’s defenses, even if he hadn’t realized they _had_ defenses.

Though…no, that wasn’t strictly true. After he’d remotely attacked Yuuri, there had been a wall around him. With perseverance, Crow thought he might eventually be able to get through it. But he’d chosen to focus on Nikiforov instead, and find out what he was made of. The euphoria he’d felt when he’d latched onto his presence at last…But once that game had been up, another wall was put in place, this one even stronger. Whatever the fuck kind of technique they’d discovered was obviously good; it worked. Maybe they hadn’t been able to keep it up in the woods, but Nikiforov was using it now.

 _Let’s find out whose is bigger, then,_ he’d thought in annoyance. _Without Yuuri here to tell me._ He gathered another ball of energy inside himself, and this time he didn’t hold back. It would usually be enough to utterly incapacitate his victim, who would be writhing on the ground and vomiting – well, that was the way they often reacted when he put some oomph into it. _You’re asking for it, amigo. See how you like it._ When the energy was white-hot inside of him, he released it.

The doctor let out a grunt and crumpled forward. _Result._ Even if it hadn’t been as dramatic as he’d hoped. The bastard knew who was boss now, anyway.

“Crow,” Lafaye said firmly from the back seat. “You’re under orders not to harm the prisoner.”

“What? He gets a stomach cramp and you immediately blame me?” he said in a modulated petulant tone.

“I’m not stupid. Anything else like that and you’ll be taken off the case.”

An incandescent bolt of rage shot through him, but he was silent. If the doctor had so much as quirked a corner of his mouth to gloat as he sat back in his seat, Crow might have forgotten everything and attacked him again. They wouldn’t take him off the case, anyway, because if Nikiforov did that trick where he made himself transparent, no one would be able to do anything to him. No one apart from Crow, whose own abilities were drastically underappreciated. How _did_ he do that, anyway? Crow could think of dozens of amazing uses for it – and that was before considering that weird portal-thing he’d summoned.

As much as he hated to do it, however, he decided it was best to leave the doctor alone for now. He wondered if he knew himself what had happened to Yuuri. If he did, why hadn’t he said something like _He’s gone where you’ll never find him,_ or _You may have me, but at least he’s safe_? Well, maybe he didn’t like to boast. But their prisoner seemed troubled, and not just because Crow had given him an invisible kick. He’d assumed at first that they’d practiced and polished what he’d seen them do, like a magician and his assistant. But maybe it hadn’t been as straightforward as that. At any rate, Nikiforov wasn’t going to talk willingly, and Crow was running out of time and options…

…and as his consciousness returned to the present, and the interminably dull operation displayed on his tablet, he felt renewed fury that he hadn’t been allowed to conduct a proper interrogation before the doctor’s memory had been wiped. He’d tried searching for Yuuri’s presence many times since then, but had been unable to detect it. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, though; because once they’d renewed their defenses after his remote attack on Nikiforov, it had been the same. No, he thought, he wouldn’t find the answers he wanted without the plank regaining his memory; and he wasn’t even sure if that was possible.

A message came to him over his chip from Agent Lafaye. The woman was here, and ready to conduct her check. He saw on his tablet that everyone apart from Nikiforov had left the operating theater; the doctor was busy scanning something on a piece of tech. It didn’t really matter where this happened. And Crow didn’t have to be present. But since he was in the compound just now, he thought he might as well enjoy some firsthand experience of the doctor’s humiliation, however slight. He told Lafaye he’d be the one to administer the tranquilizer today.

When he arrived at the theater, Willow was standing outside, looking at him with her typical expression that he’d decided was a mixture of dour and frightened-rabbit. He took the injector device from her hand. “Measured dose, right?” She nodded. “Shame.”

“What is it about him that you hate so much?”

He didn’t dignify that with a response, but went into the theater, deciding to play the demure helpful employee. Nikiforov didn’t seem to think it was worth his while to take notice of him as he entered.

“Another successful operation, Doctor?” he said in a respectful voice.

Nikiforov adjusted something on the machine he was peering into. “Hm?” He glanced over to see who was talking to him. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Crow. I work for the Institute. They asked me to find out if you were feeling any better today. If you’d had any dizzy spells.”

“Not yet,” he said, turning back to whatever it was he was working on.

 _Well, fuck you too._ “No signs of your memory returning?” Crow asked as he approached.

“Unfortunately, no…” the doctor replied, not looking up. “…though if anyone has an idea for something they could try, I’d appreciate it. It’s…” He made another adjustment. “…not very pleasant, losing a chunk of your life like that.”

“I’m sure it isn’t.”

He was within striking distance now, and clapped the injector over the doctor’s arm more forcefully than was strictly required. Nikiforov slumped to the floor and spilled into a heap there, though he wasn’t completely out cold; his eyes were still open slightly, and he groaned. Crow smirked.

Willow crept timidly in, but had the audacity to shoot him an angry look when she saw the doctor on the floor. “You’re supposed to catch him before he falls and put him in a chair or something, so he doesn’t hit his head,” she said, going over to him. She wasn’t strong enough to move the big lump of muscles on her own, and he wasn’t going to volunteer to help her. With another pissed-off glance his way, she turned the doctor over onto his back and stared into his glazed eyes. After a couple of minutes, she stood and held her hand out for the injector, which Crow gave back.

“Well?” he said.

“His memories are still locked away.”

“That’s what I like to hear, darlin’.”

“I’m not your darling,” she muttered.

“Are you gonna leave him on the floor like that?”

“Are you gonna help me pick him up?”

He just raised an eyebrow.

“Then I guess I’ll have to. Poor guy.”

Crow laughed.

“Look…I’ve checked him a lot of times now. Each time it’s the same. His memory won’t come back on its own. Please, just let me and my kids go.” Her tone was imploring. “Even if it’s back to the commune. You…you can take the money back if you want,” she whispered. “I don’t want it.”

He chuckled, trying to make this hen out. “I thought that was the whole reason you stoolied your friends. You were fast enough to bank the reward.”

“They aren’t my friends…not exactly,” she said quietly. “I’d never met this one. And Yuuri…he was nice to me. And this is how I repay him.” She pocketed the injector with an angry motion. “I feel like shit. And they…” Her voice fell to a whisper. “…they want me to experiment on other people’s memories here. I can’t do this. It’s wrong.”

“What a tortured soul. I guess you should’ve thought of all this before. Kinda late now, isn’t it?” She sniffed and stared daggers at him. “Anyway, whether you realize it or not, you’ve got a very useful ability. Even _I_ can’t do the stuff you do. Or maybe I can. You’ll have to try teaching me sometime.”

“Hell will freeze over first,” she snapped as she turned and went to the door. Crow laughed again as she left. So she did have a feisty side after all. It was probably about as strong as a piece of cardboard.

He left the good doctor lying where he was on the floor, resisting the urge to kick him as he went past, and threaded his way through the corridors until he arrived at the tech workshop, where he picked up a tablet he’d gotten repaired. Nikiforov’s red backpack was still lying on a table, with various items of interest scattered around it. He’d only had the chance to glance at it before, and approached for a more thorough look now. The first thing that caught his eye was a bundle of cash. They would have counted how much was here, so there was no point in slipping some out to keep for himself. Jesus, who walked around with all that money on them? And apparently it was all going to be put back in the plank’s bank account. Someone here really must like him, to do him a favor like that.

He picked up a tablet and attempted to scan through it, but it was still password protected. Hadn’t anyone hacked into it yet? How hard could it be, even if he’d encrypted it? And there was a hand-held scanner type of gadget here. A couple of agents had gone to the commune where the two doctors had been staying, and gotten some information out of various officials who knew them. After initially insisting that she didn’t know what this device did, some woman there had admitted it was an ultrasonic device that Nikiforov had invented to destroy chips in the brain. _That_ had been interesting. Crow had been told that this thing was slated to be taken to pieces so they could understand how it worked, and then destroyed.

And because they wanted to keep him happy here so that he would carry on being a nice little drone for them, they were going to give him back his backpack with every innocuous object replaced that it had originally contained. He’d had some old maps and printouts of areas in California that he’d obviously used for navigation, which they’d removed so as not to risk jogging his memory. Sappy pictures of himself and Yuuri on his aircam that they’d erased. Crow thought about that, and smiled when he imagined the look on Yuuri’s face if he saw his precious Victor now, who wouldn’t even recognize him. _Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met._ The distant politeness would be devastating. Well, he could hope. Crow wasn’t honestly sure what it would feel like, though he thought it would be reasonable to assume it would hurt. People who gave their hearts away like that were vulnerable idiots, and he wasn’t one of them, and never would be.

A call came over his chip. It was Lafaye. The bane of his life. He answered.

“Crow, I’ve been asked to remind you that you’ve got missions waiting to be completed. Our superiors are wondering why you’re hanging around here when it’s not accomplishing anything.”

Crow frowned. “And they can’t contact me themselves, because…?”

“Because they wanted me to do it.”

Well that explained everything.

“They said they’d let you know if anything changed with Vic – with Dr. Nikiforov.”

“Look, Agent,” Crow said, beginning to pace in frustration, “I need to know if Katsuki’s alive. If he is, this is the first place he’d come, no matter how dangerous he thought it was. And if the two of them happened to reunite and get away from here – I think it’s important to ask where they’d go. Nikiforov made this device to destroy chips. Seems obvious he intended to use it. What if they developed more tech to help them? What were they planning?”

“We’ll be working on that. But Crow, there are other people we need you to…”

Crow ignored him for a moment as he babbled on. He knew what to do next. He was going to visit the building that housed the main Cloud chip operations and have a closer look, rather than just take in the generic tour-guide spiel as he had when he’d been there before. Maybe if he better understood how these electronic chips worked, he could formulate ideas of his own about what those two had been up to, seeing as how his own agency didn’t seem to think it was a priority.

And afterward? He could come back here. They wouldn’t let him kill Nikiforov, though maybe he could think of a few ways to play with him some more. But producing another depression wasn’t going to be one of them. That had taken a lot of effort and dedication. Frankly, it had been exhausting, and the feelings had contaminated him. No, he wouldn’t do that again. Something shorter and sharper this time. He’d enjoy coming up with possibilities. Though as he thought about it now, he realized none of it was likely to be very entertaining as long as the doctor had that blocking chip in place. People with working spirit-sight were like giant antennas for this stuff. If only Yuuri would turn up…that would be the best thing, by far.

“…to let them know,” Lafaye finished, and Crow realized he had no idea what the useless gonk was saying.

“I’ll carry out one of the jobs on my list first, just so people stay happy,” he announced. “Shouldn’t take more than a few days. After that, I’m heading for Boston.”

There was a pause. Then, “Why?”

“To do research. Isn’t that why most people go there? There’s a fucking university on practically every block. And, Agent, tell me the _minute_ anything here changes.”

Before Lafaye could reply, he cut him off, then strode purposefully out of the room.   


	66. Chapter 66

Yuuri took a moment to get his bearings. He was standing on a city street lined with trees whose bare branches were just beginning to bud. Instinctively he scanned the area for surveillance cameras, though he’d begun to shield before he’d left the portal his grandmother had opened. It had quickly shut behind him after he’d stepped out, and he was left feeling exposed to the crisp early spring morning air, shoving his hands into the pockets of his fleece. One thing was for sure – this wasn’t California. A cool white sun was just beginning to peek over the top of the row of stone and brick apartment blocks in front of him, each with railed stairs leading to an entrance. A few commuters hurried past him without a glance, and occasional taxis and people on bicycles went down the street.

He tried to shake off the feeling of disorientation. A different time and place…though not far different, he thought. And despite everything he’d just experienced – the chase, Victor getting caught, being lost in the fog and weeping his heart out, meeting his grandmother and Bubbles – he felt reinvigorated somehow; like he’d just awakened from a refreshing nap. He couldn’t begin to decide what to make of it all from a scientific perspective. But that was the last thing he was worried about at the moment.

It felt like the spirits of the two women were still with him somehow. Trailing, watching. Or maybe it was just a feeling he’d been left with after his remarkable meeting with them. He didn’t doubt that every minute of it had been real. One day, when all this was over with, he’d sit down with Victor in some pleasant garden, under cherry blossoms again maybe, and tell him all about it. And they’d look together for that place through the portal. For other places; the ones his grandmother had said were out there to find, if he wanted to. He did want to.

Assuming, of course, that he would live beyond today. Would be able to get Victor out of the Institute’s compound, and restore his memory, and do whatever was necessary to stop them from being hunted down again.

That was all, he thought as the chill breeze blew down the sidewalk. Not so much to ask, then.

He crossed the street and approached an apartment building painted a dull melted-chocolate-ice-cream color, trotting up the steps to the little porch and finding the weatherproof digital display of unit numbers on the wall.

Of course. He’d gotten so used to living without a chip that he’d forgotten how essential they were for day-to-day life outside of the commune. He wouldn’t be able to get into the entry hall or even “buzz” anyone inside without calling an emergency number, and that in itself posed problems.

He wasn’t sure how he knew it was this building, or Number Four inside that he was after; he simply felt certain of it. But none of that should matter, anyway, for what he intended to try just now.

 _[I’m here to see you,]_ he sent. After the ease of communication in the portal, doing this back in…well, he couldn’t call it real life, as if the place he’d been was a fantasy. The ordinary material world, then? After that experience, it _did_ feel heavy and slow here, like trying to move underwater. While he could transfer understanding as always, the same problems lingered too – about how well that understanding came across, and how it was difficult or impossible to send images, words, names or places. He assumed Willow would “feel out” who was contacting her. Whether or not she would agree to let him in, however…

He waited for a few minutes, becoming aware of the high-pitched, scattered feel of her presence that he remembered. While he was shielding, she might not be able to feel his; but she knew now that he was here.

 _[I need to talk,]_ he sent, emphasizing the _need._ But still nothing. He fought down a surge of frustration and tried to think of the best way to get through to her, based on what he’d seen in the portal. She hadn’t been happy about how events had played out, and regretted the decisions she’d made. How deep that regret went, however, was unknown. Maybe she was afraid he was here in revenge for what had happened to Victor.

_[I have no intention of hurting anyone. I need your help.]_

The wind made a moaning noise as it blew through the eaves above the porch. He toed the concrete, biting his lip.

 _[You owe me that much,]_ he finally sent, with a spike of anger.

After another moment, the door in front of him buzzed open. Yuuri walked through, into a dark vestibule with a hallway leading forward and red-carpeted stairs to the right. He took the stairs to the next story, spotted Number 4, and knocked on the wooden door. It opened a crack, to reveal a pair of wary gray eyes, and then Willow pulled it the rest of the way with a weary resignation. Yuuri found himself in the apartment he’d seen in the portal. It looked old, but in good condition, with lush blue carpeting and matching drapes along the windows, a solid oak dining table, plush furniture. The children were sitting at the table eating their breakfast.

“Hi, Will!” Tom called over with a wave when he saw him.

Willow turned to Yuuri in fear. _[They’re listening to everything. They track every move I make…]_

“It’s OK,” he said. “I’m blocking your chip. I guess your kids don’t have them installed yet.”

“Of course not; they’re too young.” She looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Try using it.”

She stared at the wall. Her face clouded. “It’s like it’s gone kaput.”

“I haven’t damaged it. I’m just blocking it.”

“OK,” she said, as if this new information was something that required acceptance. She crossed her arms and looked at him. Teamed with her faded jeans was a flesh-colored long-sleeved button-down shirt with large lapels, covered with a pink and deep red flower pattern, which seemed to reflect a faint glow into her washed-out cheeks.  

“My name isn’t Will. It’s Yuuri.”

“I know.” She fidgeted with a small silver bracelet on her wrist and looked at the floor.

“And you must know I wouldn’t hurt you or your kids.”

She sighed and nodded, then her eyes flitted to the dining table. “When you guys are done eating, go get dressed. Tom, you’ll have to give the girls some help if they need it, while I talk to Wi – to Yuuri here.”

“Aw, Mom – ”

“Just do it, OK?”

The boy frowned at her, then got himself a glass of milk and tapped at a tablet at the table while he drank, a white mustache forming over his top lip. The twin girls ate bowls of cereal and chattered to each other.

Willow went over to the dark blue sofa and sat down, motioning for Yuuri to do the same. “Look,” she said in a low voice, “I don’t know how much you know – ”

“You erased Victor’s memory.” Yuuri meant it to come out as a flat statement, but it was difficult not to let a note of accusation slip through.

“I wish I could make it up to you. Honestly, I didn’t know they were going to make me do that.”

 _You might reasonably have assumed that they would try to capture and kill us,_ Yuuri thought, but forced himself to remain silent.

She took a shuddering breath, fidgeting with her bracelet again. Her eyes were suddenly bright with unshed tears. “I need you to understand…I just wanted to protect my family, like still I do now. This isn’t what they promised me. All my life…I’ve only ever wanted to feel safe.” Her voice wobbled. “And I never have. And this is even worse than before.”

“Willow…” Yuuri’s words were quiet and precise. “…I need to know exactly what you did to Victor, and if and how it can be reversed.”

She sniffled and stared at him. “How did you get away? They said…they said you’d disappeared somehow. They didn’t even know if you were still alive.”

He ignored the question. “Please – it’s important.” He paused, thinking it might help if he spelled things out a little more clearly. “I need to try to get Victor out of there,” he said just above a whisper. “It might turn out to be the last thing I ever do. But I love him. Do you know what it’s like to see something like this happen to someone you love?”

“I…I’m sorry,” she choked out. “Honestly, Yuuri, I am.”

“Then _help_ me. Tell me what you did.” He looked at her earnestly.

She had a quick conversation with Tom as he got up and left the table. Then she told Carol and Sarah to get a move on. After this, she turned back to Yuuri. “I found out by accident, years ago, that I could…you know…” Yuuri had to strain to hear her. “…mess with people’s memories. Just…experimenting with the ESP, you know, the way you do. I guess you do it yourself?” She looked at him questioningly, but he remained silent, and she went on. “Well, I never mentioned it to you because I ain’t exactly proud of it. It ain’t a nice thing to do to people. I know that. Though sometimes if I’m afraid of them, or mad at them, it’s tempting.” She blinked. “I did it to my husband. Wiped out years of his memory, back to before he even knew me.”

Yuuri stared at her with parted lips, his skin crawling.

“It seemed better that way, somehow. That’s the real reason why he don’t send us money. He don’t remember who we are.”

Yuuri started to say something but thought better of it. He wasn’t going to sit here in judgment of her right now. Well, not openly. But…Jesus.

She gave the twins one last shout to go get dressed, and they scrambled away from the table to their bedroom, where there were thumps. Then she turned back to Yuuri. “Like I said, I ain’t proud of this, but…you look into their eyes and enter their mind. You have some idea how much of their memory you want to wall off.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “Wall off?”

“Yeah…I imagine it like a castle and a moat, you know? The castle is the memories. Then you hunt around inside them and gather the stuff they’re most afraid of. That’s like the moat. You close the memories in with their deepest fears. I thought it was kind of clever at first, figuring out how to do that. Though…well, I always knew it was mean, too.”

“That’s what you did to Victor?” Yuuri said, his throat constricting around the words.

She looked down and nodded. “I couldn’t tell the Institute how long the effect lasts. I mean, as far as I know, it’s forever.” Yuuri’s eyes widened, and when she met them she looked down again and muttered, “Sorry. It’s just, I’ve never tried to undo it before. I haven’t stuck around the people I did it to. For your…for Victor, they told me to make him forget about two years’ worth of memories. I have to come in and check on him every day, make sure he hasn’t remembered anything. I tranquilize him every time. He just thinks he’s getting dizzy spells from a drug they’ve been giving him, though it’s just a placebo.”

Yuuri really didn’t want to see the images that entered his mind as she described these things. _Oh Victor._ He put his forehead in his hand and tried to will them away.

Willow swallowed as she watched him. “Shit, I really am sorry.” When Yuuri said nothing, she coughed and continued. “Anyway, I might not understand how it works, but I have an idea. Most people don’t wanna face their deepest fears, cause it’s scary as hell, so they never can get those memories back. And if those memories have something to do with the fears in the first place? Well, how do you even know those fears are there if you’ve forgotten them? Like I said, I thought at first I’d learned how to do something clever. I was even proud of myself. I promise you though, I ain’t now. I never wanted to do that stuff to Victor. They _made_ me. They threatened me and my children.”

 _After you called them, which no one made you do._ Yuuri took a deep breath and raised his head, marveling at the capacity of some people for casual cruelty. Though unlike Crow, Willow was clearly no sadist. And she genuinely seemed to be sorry, even though that wouldn’t fix anything on its own. Maybe he could work with it, Yuuri thought, if he could ignore the revulsion he felt.

“How do you get inside the Institute when you go?” he asked her.

She reached into the drawer of a table next to the sofa and pulled out a ring that Yuuri instantly recognized. The Orphic egg. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised – after all, Victor had said himself that it was how people accessed the building. But to see it again, like this…

“Something wrong?” Willow asked him as she put the ring on her finger. “It’s just a ring. Is it bothering you?”

“I…no, it’s OK.” He told himself to shake off the shadows the sight of it had conjured. “It’ll let you into the building?”

“The chip inside’s got clearance for the main door and the ones inside that ain’t secret or anything. That’s most of them. It ain’t exactly the Pentagon, or a prison or anything; it’s annexed to a university. Might even have been part of it once, from the look of the place.”

“Fine,” Yuuri said, taking heart from this. “I need you to get me in. This morning, if you can.”

She looked at him in shock, drawing back. “No way.”

He bit back an angry reply.

“I mean, they _want_ you there. They’ve been _hoping_ you’d show up. Well when I say _they_ , I mean that horrible…” She swallowed again. “That jack who calls himself Crow; I don’t – ”

“He’s been there?” Yuuri felt a pool of fear spread in the pit of his stomach.

“The others, they don’t seem to care; they’re just worried about Victor’s memory coming back. But Crow talks about you. He keeps wondering what happened to you.” She paused. “He’s not actually there that often, from what I can tell. But I’ve met him a couple of times – and lemme tell you, that’s a couple of times too many. He…” She lowered her voice to a whisper again. “…he’s got ESP. He…he can torture people with it. He did it to me until I agreed to do what he wanted. No way do you want him doing that to you. I’d hate to think of it.”

 _You should’ve thought of that before you turned us in, then._ But no, that wasn’t fair. She hadn’t known about Crow at the time. “I’ve…um, I’ve met him several times myself.” He forced his voice to sound firm. “Just…let me worry about that, OK? Though I appreciate your concern.” He mentally ran through what he _could_ do, before his anxiety could creep up on him much further. Maybe he could even hide his “signal” now, like Crow did, though he wasn’t sure. But none of it had been enough to enable himself or Victor to get away in the woods once he had arrived.

 _Face it, Yuuri, if he_ is _at the Institute when you go, you’re likely to end up in a lot of trouble._

That was a voice he had to refuse to listen to. None of it mattered. He was going to find Victor and bring him out.                    

“So you want me to let you in,” Willow reiterated.

“Well, I need you to do a bit more than that,” Yuuri said as he put together the pieces of a plan. “You said you’ve been tranquilizing Victor? I want you to give him a big enough dose to keep him out for a couple of hours – without hurting him.”

She looked like she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “But how will you get him out of there if he’s unconscious?”

“I’ll carry him.” He felt confident in his strength – over a certain distance, at any rate.

“You’re fragged,” she said, huffing a laugh. “Seriously? Wouldn’t it be better just to persuade him to go with you? I dunno…tell him you were sent to let him know that a family member’s sick, or something?”

Yuuri made an impatient little noise. “It won’t work. For a start, he’s been told to stay in the compound, so he’d wonder why someone he didn’t know had suddenly showed up asking him to leave with him.” It felt odd imagining Victor not recognizing him, after everything they’d been through, all that time…no, he mustn’t think about it. “He’d protest, or refuse to go – and then what? At the very least, he’d try to verify what I was telling him first. Tranquilizing him won’t be easy either, but I think it’s probably going to be the only way.”

“And you want _me_ to do that?”

“Do you need a chip to get out as well as in?” he asked, ignoring the question.

“No, you shouldn’t. But Yuuri – as much as I’d like to help you, I can’t do this stuff. I’ve got three little kids, and they ain’t got a dad, or anybody else. They need me. I – ”

“Think of all those people whose memories you wiped, without their permission,” Yuuri said, finding it difficult to stay calm. “If you help me, you might be helping to undo what you did to one of them. My partner. At least give _me_ the chance to try.”

“But if I get caught – ”

“I can make it so that no one will know you had a part in it,” he cut across her, his mind working frantically to stay one step ahead. “I can shield us – like I’m doing now – so that the cameras don’t see us. They won’t pick up on your chip. You lead me to Victor, tranquilize him, then hang around for…say, ten minutes; then raise an alarm. Tell them you went to check on Victor as usual and discovered he wasn’t there. Would you do that?”

She stared at him, fingering her bracelet. The children broke into shouts at each other across the bedrooms, which quickly quietened.

“Willow…please,” Yuuri said, holding her gaze. “I’m going to do this somehow, with or without you, but…I think I stand a much better chance with your help. I need to get him out of there, and see if I can make his memory return. That’s what he’d want, too.” He paused. “We’re both…really good scientists. I hope one day we can research ESP, maybe do something about surveillance through the chip if that’s possible, even do something against the Institute. Please, give us that chance. I can even destroy your chip when we’re done if you want, I’ve got a device – ”

“No,” she said immediately. “They’ll suspect something’s up. They might even suspect now, if you’re doing this shielding thing. They might think I’ve gone to get it removed or something. I’d better check in with them in a minute; let them see where I am, and I dunno, just tell them I think I’ve got a problem with my chip and need it checking or something. Crap,” she added distractedly.

Yuuri placed a hand on her arm. “Will you help me?”

She appeared to be considering. He waited, telling himself to stay patient. And finally… _finally_ …a sudden fire leaped into her eyes, and she nodded. Yuuri let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“I don’t wanna keep cutting my chip out on them, though,” she said. “Is there some way we can talk without…well, talking, so I can keep it on? Can you shield and let my chip work at the same time?”

Yuuri thought about it. _[Try it now.]_

She looked into the distance. “Yeah…yeah, that’s better.” _[I need to call them before they send agents here.]_

Yuuri felt a dart of fear. It was possible, of course, that she would betray him instead. It would be a quick and easy way of getting him out of her apartment and making him run. But she was still his best hope. Deciding to trust that she would be as good as her word, he nodded.

She stood up from the sofa, and Yuuri heard her speaking to someone about her malfunctioning chip as she went to check on the children, telling them it was just about time to go to school. Whoever she was talking to gave her a few unpleasant words, from the sound of it, but the conversation didn’t last long.  

 _[Block my chip again while I get the kids off to school,]_ she sent. _[One word from them about you or a visitor this morning, and there’ll be questions I’ll have to answer.]_

Yuuri did so. Willow got Tom on the school bus to kindergarten. Shortly afterward, someone came around to take the twins to preschool along with her own children. Yuuri heard Willow ask her if she’d collect them at lunchtime, and if no one was home, take care of them until they heard from her. She dodged the woman’s questions, saying she had work to do outside the house that might take longer than she’d expected.

When the woman had gone, Willow shut the door and indicated her own head, giving Yuuri a nod, and he unblocked her chip.

 _[Are you hungry or thirsty?]_ she asked him.

He suddenly realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much as a drink of water. _[Very.]_

She got him a tall glass to fill from the faucet, and cooked a skillet of bacon and eggs for him.

 _[Aren’t you hungry?]_ Yuuri sent.

 _[You think I can eat when we’re going to do this insanely dangerous thing?]_ She gave him a pointed look as he finished his meal. _[If anything goes wrong, and my children are affected, your balls are going on that chopping block over there.]_

Yuuri winced at the image. He wanted to remind her that this was her fault in the first place. But then he realized the fault-finding could be taken back a long way, through decisions he and Victor had made as well. Apportioning blame wasn’t going to solve anything.

He looked at her. _[I’ll wash the dishes. Do you know the Institute well enough to draw me a map of the inside?]_

_[It won’t be complete, but I’ll try.]_

She did so, and Yuuri studied it, silently asking her questions as they arose. Fortunately, the place didn’t look very big. He did his best to memorize the map so that he’d know where he was going when they got there; then he put the piece of paper into a pocket in his backpack.

 _[I don’t have a weapon,]_ Willow sent while she prepared a dose of tranquilizer. _[Do you?]_

Yuuri took his stun gun out of his pocket and showed it to her. _[I hope I won’t have to use it.]_

_[Let’s hope you don’t end up wishing you had a laser gun instead.]_

Yuuri watched her finish loading the injector, loathing the fact that they were planning to use it on Victor. He reminded himself of what she’d agreed to risk for his sake. _[I really appreciate your help. It’s brave of you to do this.]_

She pulled on a cream-colored satin jacket with a small red dragon at the top, then shoved the injector into a pocket. _[I told you I wanted to do this. But I’m terrified. Let’s just get it over with.]_


	67. Chapter 67

Yuuri was working out the intricacies of shielding as they went, wishing he’d experimented more with Victor when they’d had the chance. It seemed that while he could only achieve a limited radius, he could shrink it as far as he wanted, or decide what he did or didn’t want to affect within it, like Willow’s chip. He also didn’t want to hide her ESP “signal” in case Crow was in the compound and expecting to sense it when she arrived, though of course it was essential to conceal his own.

He couldn’t help but think again that if Crow _was_ in residence, those things would be the least of his problems. But his grandmother and Bubbles wanted him to have hope…though there was a difference between realistic hopes and fantastic, foolishly impossible ones.

Willow had been settled in an apartment that was within convenient walking distance of the Institute. As they approached the nondescript gray building set partially into a hill, with Columbia University visible on its far side, Yuuri slipped into the surrounding bushes and circled around; although he could make himself invisible to security cameras, he could of course be spotted by the eyes of anyone who happened to pass by. He made his way through the undergrowth, watching Willow; and his heart leaped when he suddenly thought about Victor somewhere within. It felt like they’d already been separated a long time, though he knew that hadn’t been the case.

_And it’ll carry on feeling that way if I get him out but can’t restore his memory._

He shivered, and told himself to focus on what they were doing. When Willow arrived at the entrance to the compound, she held her ring up to a small panel in the wall. The silver metal door slid open silently, and she turned to look around, as if trying to spot him. He sprinted across the grassy stretch between them, praying no one would notice him while he was out in the open. Maybe it would’ve been better to do this at night…but that would introduce a different set of complications. At any rate, he joined Willow at the open door without any sign of pursuit, and they went inside, the door sliding shut behind them.

In the same way that few stores had human attendants anymore, few buildings employed security guards, relying almost entirely on tech to monitor the premises. Yuuri was grateful for the advantage that gave him, though he still had Willow walk in front of him and look around corners, silently letting him know if it was safe for him to follow.

He’d begun to notice something else, as well: something very welcome. Victor’s ESP signal. He’d know it anywhere, like the opening notes to a favorite song. He could tell they were headed in the right direction, as he felt it strengthening. Yet when he tried to send anything to Victor, he was met with a wall. Victor wouldn’t be shielding; he had, no doubt, completely forgotten about having developed ESP, as the Institute would have wanted. And to reinforce that, they almost certainly would have placed a blocking chip in his head. It might prevent him from sending, receiving, or otherwise doing anything with his ESP; but it obviously didn’t stop him from emitting his beautiful signal, like a lighthouse shining into a dark night.

_I can see you, my Velvet. You’re here somewhere. Close._

_[This room,]_ Willow sent, stopping ahead and looking back at him. _[They know I’m here and told me over my chip that this is where I should go. You’d better stay here in the hall unless you see someone coming. And make sure you’re fooling the cameras in the room, too, so they don’t see what I’m doing.]_

 _[Trust me.]_    

She opened the door, which swung shut behind her. Yuuri kept an eye out for anyone coming down the corridor. A minute later, Willow contacted him again.

_[He’s asleep. You can come in.]_

Yuuri opened the door and was met with the sight of Victor in a heap on the floor, his lab coat fanned around him, bangs flopped over a closed eye. Yuuri almost spoke aloud to Willow, but stopped himself, as he knelt down and checked him for any obvious injuries from his fall. _[You just let him slump over like this?]_

_[I’m not strong enough to do anything else. I’m sorry.]_

Yuuri scanned the room. They appeared to be in a small workshop, with tech scattered on the counters. Nothing of immediate interest. Victor’s backpack had been placed in a corner, and his black jacket with the gold dragon was hanging on a peg by the door. As Willow watched, Yuuri grabbed the jacket and gently replaced the lab coat with it, then put Victor’s backpack on him, silently apologizing all the while for the manhandling.

 _[I don’t know how you’re going to get out of here with him like that,]_ Willow sent, staring. _[I’m sorry, but…]_

 _[I’ll manage,]_ he sent with more confidence than he felt. He lifted Victor carefully in a fireman’s carry, threading his left arm between his legs and reaching over to clutch Victor’s left arm, with the bulk of the weight supported across his shoulders, and leaving his right hand free to pull his stun gun out of his pocket and hold it at the ready. The top of his backpack was being crushed, but there was nothing in it that was going to be harmed or broken. Willow continued to stare silently as he stood, making sure Victor was secure.

 _[Thank you,]_ he sent. _[I wish you and your children all the best.]_

_[Good luck to you both. I’m really sorry about what I did. I hope you can forgive me.]_

_[If you can find a way to undo what you did to those people whose memories you took away…]_

_[I know. I’ll try.]_

Yuuri nodded. _[Will you open the door and check that there’s no one out there?]_

She did so, then gestured for him to make a move. With one last look at her, he was outside the room, staring down the length of an empty white corridor.

 _Shield, shield, shield,_ he reminded himself. _I’ve got to protect us both._

He wasn’t used to carrying weight like this, though. And he was prepared for Crow to appear around a corner. Every cell in his body felt ready to react with a moment’s notice. He couldn’t afford to let his anxiety creep up and take over – not now, of all times.

_Hang on, Victor. I’m going to get us out of here._

Drawing on his memory of Willow’s map, he began to move, discovering a pace that would enable him to cover the distance as quickly as possible without Victor slipping from his shoulders. He slowly and carefully peered around every corner before he turned, beginning to think his luck might just hold. The entrance couldn’t be far.

He found himself in a long corridor with no places to hide; just bare walls. Mentally keeping his fingers crossed, he trotted down its length – and was suddenly met with a group of seven men and women in dark suits who strode around the far corner. They looked as surprised as Yuuri was, but not for long, as they reached into their pockets with the clear intent to draw weapons. Yuuri attempted to split his attention three ways: shielding the area from communication, phase-shifting all gunfire aimed at him, and using his stun gun. There was no time to think about being frightened or anxious; to consider the possibility of being captured or killed. White and blue light rippled through the air at him and passed harmlessly through himself and Victor, and out the wall without making contact with anything. Meanwhile, Yuuri stood his ground and systematically stunned each person in turn. Before any of them could consider running away as a sensible option, all seven of them were lying on the hard white floor of the hall, out cold. He walked over to them and stood and stared, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.

_Did I just do that? Oh my god…_

Two things happened at once. He heard footsteps echoing in the hall in the direction from which he’d come, and Willow contacted him; she was obviously still in range, however that was defined.

 _[They know you’re here. Get out as fast as you can.]_    

The footsteps were rapidly approaching. And whoever was coming wouldn’t be encumbered like he was. He threaded around the unconscious people on the floor and ran, recalling Willow’s map again. Surely…just over here…

Yes, there was the door. He ran up to it. It should open for him, shouldn’t it? Willow had said it didn’t lock from the inside. There weren’t any panels on the side of the wall, not even chip-operated ones.

 _[The door won’t open,]_ he sent to Willow.

_[They’ve done something so that you can’t get out. I don’t know what you can do. Try the other door, the one that leads to the main university building…I’m sorry…]_

That was all the way across the compound, according to the map. And the footsteps were close now. There was only one option available to him. He sent an almighty pulse of energy at the door, willing whatever mechanical mechanism operated it to explode into a thousand sparks. A silver shower erupted from the vertical crack along the wall; several of the sparks bit into Yuuri’s skin. He reached along the crack and discovered that the door, though heavy, could be pulled open, but he had to pocket his stun gun first to do it.

As he took a stride forward into the gap, a deep female voice ordered him to stop. Without turning to look behind him, Yuuri visualized the laser gun in her hand and sent energy to disable it; he heard her cry out as it exploded in her hand. It was lucky for him, he thought as he ran past the partially open door and out onto the grass, that they hadn’t expected him to turn up here today; his assumption was apparently correct that the only weapons they’d have ready to use would be the laser guns. Though if they’d had old-fashioned guns with bullets, he reckoned he could phase-shift those. Better to destroy the weapon first, though, if he could. He concentrated on phase-shifting anything that came toward him from the doorway, and heard a gun being fired – though it was coming from _in front_ of him, and was not directed at him but at the doorway, as if someone were trying to prevent anyone else from emerging. But why?

“Over here,” a voice called. There was a man with short wavy blond hair dressed in black lurking in the bushes. Yuuri adjusted his hold on Victor and ran to him, continuing to shield, hoping he was meeting with some success; he’d obviously not done a thorough job of it inside the compound.

The gun in the man’s hand now pointed at him. “What are you doing with Victor?”

“Getting him the hell out of there,” Yuuri huffed between breaths. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Covering you, for now. Come on – it isn’t safe here.”

The man turned and ran, at a pace Yuuri was able to keep up with. It wasn’t easy getting through the undergrowth while carrying Victor, but eventually they emerged into a street. Yuuri thought they must be making a spectacle out here, and there would be plenty of witnesses to attest to where they were going; though no cameras should be detecting them at least.

“You’re Yuuri, aren’t you?” the man called, turning his head to look behind him.

“Yes. You must be Chris.”

“Got it in one. Look – over here, another park. There’s some small alleyways off it. I don’t think anybody’s following us, but we better make sure that if they are, we give them a tough time trying to find us.”

They crossed more greenery, Yuuri feeling the strain in his shoulders and arms now. Finally they arrived at a group of old brick buildings on the edge of the park, and Chris led him into the alley between two of them, into which barely a trickle of sunlight penetrated. Yuuri knelt and gently deposited the unconscious Victor on the ground, leaning against the cold brick wall behind him, cushioned by his backpack. He laid a hand on his cheek and studied his face, but not an eyelid flickered.

“I’ve seen Victor’s pictures of you,” Chris said as he stood and watched Yuuri. “I took a chance on you back there, stopping them from chasing you. But you don’t seem very concerned about whether anyone’s spying on us. You know they can listen through the chip, and they’ve got surveillance cameras everywhere, right?”

“I’ve been blocking them,” Yuuri muttered, not taking his eyes off Victor or his hand away from his cheek. Then he glanced up briefly at Chris. “Though you didn’t know that, did you?”

“I’ve been blocking them too. I assume you’ve got one of these?” He partially unzipped his black coat – everything he was wearing was black – and showed Yuuri the underside of one of his lapels, on which was clipped a device about the size of the face on Yuuri’s wristwatch. Its display emitted a faint glow in the dark alley.

“No, I’ve been using ESP. What’s that?”

Chris stared at him. “You…what?”

“I’ve been using ESP.”

“You’re gonna tell me next that you came here on a spaceship or something. You’re not serious.”

“Can you just tell me how you’re blocking all the surveillance? Is it that thing on your lapel that’s doing it?”

“Only if you give me a straight answer yourself,” Chris countered.

Yuuri stood wearily, leaning against the wall opposite to where he’d propped Victor. His head was flooded. They seemed to be safe for now, even if Chris was being difficult. He’d been told he could trust him. Safe…after he’d been fired at by how many people…with Victor draped across his shoulders. Everything that had happened in the compound seemed to blend into a tornado whose fury whipped his system into a frenzy. He could’ve died. _Victor_ could’ve died. If he had, if would’ve been his fault. Crow could’ve been in that compound…Willow could’ve betrayed him…he’d been incredibly, incredibly lucky to have escaped…

“Fuck,” he whispered, feeling the familiar tightness close around his throat. His breaths quickened and his pulse raced. He felt light-headed; dizzy even. “Fuck, fuck.” He palmed the wall behind him, gasping now, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hey…are you OK? Yuuri?” he heard Chris say.

He was trembling now. No…he couldn’t give in. He had to keep shielding. Whatever Chirs’s device did, it might not do everything they needed it to do. He had to protect them…had to…

“Hey, jack, can you hear me?”

Yuuri felt a hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes. There was Chris’s stubble-chinned face, shadowed with concern. “I…just give me a minute…I’ll be OK.”

“You don’t look OK.”

“It’s a panic attack, all right?” Yuuri heaved some more breaths. “I almost fucking died in there. With Victor.”

“OK, I get you. Just…calm down, then.” He looked at Victor. “Is _he_ OK? What did you do to him?”

“I’d never hurt him. I just had to get him out of there. He wouldn’t have recognized me; he’s lost his memory.”

Chris’s brow wrinkled. “You’re telling me this, after you tell me you’ve got ESP…and I’m supposed to believe it all?”

Yuuri took some steadying breaths. The worst of the panic was ebbing away now. “They were keeping him captive in there. I, um…I tranquilized him to get him out. Though I don’t know yet what I’m going to do about his memory. He won’t know me when he wakes up.” He looked at Chris. “You must’ve known some of this – why else did you help me get away?”

“I was worried about Victor. And before you ask again…” He lifted his lapel once more, to display the device there. “…this makes me invisible to security cameras and blocks chip transmissions. Well, within a five-meter radius. Most people don’t know things like this exist, but the CIA has everything.”

Yuuri stared. “You’re in the CIA?”

“That’s right.

“Victor never mentioned that.”

“He doesn’t know. Look, Yuuri, I think we both have a lot to explain to each other, but this isn’t the best place for it. Why don’t we go someplace safer, like a hotel across the city, where he can recover.” Chris looked down at Victor again. “I know where we can get a taxi from here. It’s not far.”

“Wait.” Yuuri took his backpack off and opened the main compartment, digging into it. “I need to get rid of the tech they’ve put in Victor’s head. I don’t have any in mine, and he wouldn’t want it either.” His hand closed around the ultrasonic device and he pulled it out. “This’ll be easier while he’s unconscious.”

“I think _you’d_ better wait, Yuuri.”

“Wh – ” Yuuri turned his head and saw Chris’s hand pointing a laser gun at him.

“This is just a precaution; at least, I hope so. I’m on your side. Well, I’m on Victor’s side. So I can’t let you do anything to him without knowing more about what’s going on. A lot more. I know how much Victor cares about you, and trusts you – or at least, how much he did before he disappeared. I don’t know what happened between the two of you after that. And I don’t know what that thing is you’re holding. You say it gets rid of tech inside your head?”

Yuuri held it up for him to look at. “Victor made it himself. Somehow I don’t think he ever guessed I’d end up having to use it on him. It’s a long story – ”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Yuuri sighed. He didn’t know when Victor was likely to wake up, though he reckoned they still had a good chunk of time to spare, if Willow had calibrated the dose as he’d asked her to. There had been no sign of pursuit, either…but that didn’t guarantee they were safe. Still, if he wanted Chris’s cooperation, he was going to have to explain, and the sooner the better. Maybe now wasn’t a bad time.

Chris continued to stand and point the gun at him, though it seemed like more like an afterthought than a conscious threat as he listened to Yuuri, who began by telling him how he’d had ESP most of his life and how he’d used it. The Orphic egg, the deaths, his discovery of how the ring was connected to Victor and the Coughlin Institute. What he’d learned about the Institute from Victor and Crow. He hadn’t wanted to go into this much detail, but thought it would help Chris understand why he’d run away, and why the agents had been after them, especially once Victor had developed ESP himself. Chris’s expression at this revelation was one of utter incredulity, but he said nothing and let Yuuri carry on. When Victor found a clue to where he was in California, Yuuri said, he joined him there; and once he’d learned about what the Institute was really up to, he’d become a fugitive too. He mentioned that they’d been living together in an offline community, then explained about the attack in the woods and how Victor had been brought back here to New York with his memory erased. Yuuri said he’d managed to get away himself and come here for Victor, and prayed Chris didn’t ask how, because he was certain he wouldn’t believe the truth if he told him. But Chris simply stared at him for a long time. Yuuri was heartened by the fact that he pocketed his gun, even though his expression was dubious.

“That’s your story, huh.”

Yuuri nodded. “I know it sounds – ”

“You’ll forgive me if I say it’s a lot to swallow.”

“I can prove the part about the ESP to you. Would that help?”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “How? You said you talked…somehow…to other people with ESP. Well, I know I don’t have it.”

“I’ve learned how to do other things since then.” He thought for a moment. “Have you got a coin?” Chris reached in a pocket and gave him a quarter. He took the needle-like digital pen from its storage compartment in the ultrasonic device and handed it carefully to Chris. “Hold this.” Then he stared at the quarter, which became partially transparent, feeling a brief flicker of pride at how far he’d come since those first struggles to try to do this. “Pass the pen through the coin.”

Chris did so, several times. “You’re like a magician,” he said, wide-eyed.

Yuuri smiled. “Victor was the one who first figured out how to do this. He taught me. But there are more practical uses for it.” He turned the coin solid again and exchanged that for the pen, then stood. “Shoot your laser gun at the wall, set to kill.”

Chris raised his eyebrows, but seeing that Yuuri was serious, took the gun out and pointed it at the brickwork. Then he fired – and the beam passed through the wall without leaving a mark. He ran a finger over it. “What the fuck,” he breathed, looking at his gun as if there was something wrong with it.

“I phase-shifted the gunfire,” Yuuri explained. “Like I did with the coin. So it couldn’t do any damage. It’s a handy way of protecting yourself.”

Chris put the gun back in his pocket and stared at Yuuri as if he’d grown two heads.

“It’s a lot to swallow, I know,” Yuuri said, returning his gaze calmly.

Chris nodded and said nothing.

“Come here and help me find a security camera. There must be one somewhere nearby, if there are buildings here.” Yuuri glanced at Victor, who had not moved yet, then walked to the end of the alley and peered out, Chris doing the same.

“There,” Chris said, pointing at the corner of one of the buildings. No sooner had he done so than a shower of sparks exploded from it with a popping noise. Again, he looked incredulously at Yuuri. “You’re human, right?”

Yuuri huffed. “Of course I am. I can do that to laser guns, too. Pretty much anything electronic. I could’ve done it to your gun when you pulled it on me, but I thought it might come in handy.”

Chris just looked at him.

“Victor can do this stuff too,” Yuuri continued. “And more. So can other people. The government sees them – us – as a threat.”

“You know, now that you mention it, I can maybe see why,” Chris said, staring with what seemed like awe.

Yuuri began to walk back down the alley toward Victor. “The Coughlin Institute had Victor performing operations to put chips in people to block them from using their ESP, in the belief that they were psychotic. Mentally ill,” he added when Chris looked at him quizzically. “The ones they see as the biggest threats, they kill.”

“Jesus,” Chris said as Yuuri knelt and picked up the ultrasonic device again. “I had no idea. My orders were to keep an eye on Victor and report back, but I didn’t know this was all going on. I didn’t even know Victor was operating on people. Or that ESP is…is real.”

Yuuri looked up at him. “You’ve been spying on Victor for the CIA?”

“It’s not what you think. I can explain.”

“All right. You gave me a turn. Now it’s yours.” Yuuri began to tap on the device’s screen with the pen. “There are two chips inside Victor. One’s the ordinary Cloud access. The other’s the one that blocks ESP. He’ll need to be able to use it. I want to get rid of them both.” He glanced up. “You OK with that now?”

“I might be. I’ve never seen anything like that device before. I’m inclined to believe you, for now, but…I haven’t seen any proof for what you’ve told me, apart from this stuff you can do with your mind, and that was OK until you got this gizmo out and said you wanted to use it on Victor. Let me have a look.” He held his hand out. “I won’t zap it or anything.”

Yuuri handed it over, and Chris gave it a careful inspection. Yuuri explained how it worked and Chris tested it, seemingly satisfied that it wasn’t a weapon in disguise. “So where’s the guarantee that you’re not going to try to scramble his brain with this?” he said eventually. “If you’re a scientist like Victor, you might have tech that can do all kinds of weird shit.”

Yuuri struggled to fight down his frustration. He told himself it was a good sign that Chris was trying to protect Victor, as he saw it. “You decided to help me when you saw me coming out of the compound with him. I’m asking you to trust me now. Short of taking that device apart, you’ve had a good look at it. Do you really think I’d sit here and try to do a number on Victor with it, right in front of you?”

Chris studied him for a long moment. Then nodded and handed the device back. “Though I’ve still got my gun, don’t forget. Even though you say you can explode it like that camera if you want to. I can take that chance.”

Yuuri nodded as well, and tapped at the screen again. “You were going to tell me about you being with the CIA. You’re welcome to explain while I’m working. I can do two things at once.” He recalled, step by step, what Victor had shown him, and began the process of locating the chips, holding the device near his head. _Please stay asleep for just a little longer, Vitenka._

Chris said, as he stood and watched, “Well, Victor might’ve told you I’m a jobbing actor, which is true. Mostly live stage shows. But I take on assignments for the CIA, too. No chance of getting bored with two such different careers, you know?” He paused as if expecting Yuuri to laugh or say something, but he just continued to concentrate on what he was doing, and eventually Chris carried on. “Some of my assignments have been as short as an evening. Victor’s been a long-term low-intensity one. They set me up to be his roommate here and told me to keep tabs on him. He never talked about what he did at the Institute, and I was never told. They seem pretty determined to keep him working for them, don’t they? I guess they must see him as a real asset.”

“He’s one of the world’s foremost experts in several areas,” Yuuri said, keeping his eyes focused on his task. He passed a hand over Victor’s face, making doubly sure he was still unconscious, then proceeded to disintegrate the ESP-blocking chip. _I really hope this isn’t doing you any damage. I know it hasn’t been tested as thoroughly as it ought to be. But you said it worked. I’m trusting you on that…_

“I know that much. It seemed like a cozy assignment. I’ve always liked Victor. I’ve thought of him as a friend.”

“Some friend,” Yuuri muttered. “It was hard enough on him to find out that people he trusted in the Institute weren’t the friends he thought they were. Now there’s you.”

Chris sighed. “I’ve never felt good about it. But I figured if they were gonna have someone doing this job anyway, it might as well be someone with integrity, you know?”

“Integrity…that’s you, is it?”

“Hey, who helped you get out of that building in the first place? This isn’t risk-free, what I’m doing right now.”

Yuuri was quiet for a moment. Then, “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s not like I ever had much to report, anyway. Victor’s never been involved in anything underhanded, as far as I could see, and I honestly doubt he ever would be.”

“I won’t argue with you there.” The chip was gone now, according to the readout. Yuuri proceeded with the Cloud chip next.

“They were interested in his social life, too. Who he was meeting up with. There wasn’t a lot to say about that, either. I mean, I had to tell them he’d met you, but I didn’t pass on every single detail Victor told me. I have principles.”

Yuuri was tempted to ask what Victor had said to him exactly, but decided it was just as well not to know. It had been months ago.

“They were really curious about why he went to Boston and why he was interested in you. Like he might’ve had some kind of top-secret plan or something.”

Yuuri felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth. _Operation Seduce Yuuri Katsuki._ Somehow he didn’t think that was what they’d had in mind.

“They kept me here to talk to Victor when I saw him on weekends,” Chris continued. “But I think other operatives might have been put on the case at that point – you know, following him to Boston, maybe tailing him here. People who didn’t have his best interests at heart. Anyway, I’ve done what I could while he’s been gone. Taking care of his stuff in the apartment. No one here, at least no one I talked to, knew where he went or why. Well, you’ve told me now, I guess, though it’s still a helluva story.”

The second chip had been disintegrated, according to the device. Yuuri turned it off, put the pen away, and returned it to his backpack, studying Victor’s pale face. _Please be OK._ Then he looked at Chris again. “Sorry, I should’ve asked. Do you want yours gone, too? Your chip?”

“Me?” Chris rubbed his rough chin. “Not a good idea, thanks just the same. I don’t think anyone knows yet that I’ve turned rogue, but that’d give it away. Besides, how do people live in a city like this without these things?”

“It isn’t easy,” Yuuri said, putting his backpack on. “That’s one reason why I went to an offline community. You say that device on your lapel blocks chip transmissions?”

“Yeah, while it’s on. Which it is.”

“Between that and my shielding, then, I guess we should be OK. We’d better head for that hotel. Have you got something in mind?”

“There’s one I know of that doesn’t ask many questions. And before you say anything about that, it’s not some fleabag place. You and Victor ought to be fine there.”

“What about you?”

“Well I’ve got an apartment to go back to, don’t I? If for no other reason than to claim I haven’t seen Victor there. Don’t worry, though; I won’t disappear for a while yet. I…missed my old amigo. Haven’t spoken to him since he disappeared.”

“It’ll probably be good if you can be there when he wakes up. He still remembers and trusts you, I hope. He won’t remember who I am.”

“I guess that’ll be pretty hard to take,” Chris said quietly.

Yuuri supposed it was an attempt at sympathy. “I’d better pick him up again.”

“Or maybe we ought to try something more discreet. If you go carrying him around the streets on your shoulders, a few people might notice.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Act like he’s drunk. We carry him between us. Like I said, the taxis aren’t far from here.”

“At eleven a.m.?”

“This is New York.” He shrugged.

“All right. I’ll get him under this arm; you get over there.”

Soon they were supporting Victor between them as they made their way through the park and down the sidewalk, his arms draped around their shoulders. Yuuri’s gut was crawling at the way he’d been hauled like a sack of potatoes today. Well, once they were at the hotel, it would finally stop.

In the taxi, they sat on either side of Victor, and Chris fed their destination into the control panel. “They can’t track me while I’m blocking my chip transmissions,” he explained as the vehicle pulled out into the street. “Just as well not to use it for little stuff like this right now, so they don’t know where I am. Being an agent, they don’t worry too much when I do that. It’s got its privileges.”

“I can imagine.” Yuuri fussed unnecessarily with Victor’s jacket, making sure it was zipped up against the chill. Felt his forehead, though he wasn’t sure why. It was cool and dry.

“He talked a lot about you,” Chris said, watching him. “I’d never seen him so taken with anyone before. I was hoping I’d get to meet you. Well, I expected I would, sometime. Though not under these circumstances, I have to say.”

Yuuri sat back and looked across at him. “You never said what you were doing outside the Institute in the first place.”

“Sure, I’ll tell you,” Chris said, eyeing him back. “It’s not a big secret, compared to what you already know. I was told Victor’d been found, but that he might not return to the apartment for a while, if at all, and I should expect a new assignment. Like I said, I’d come to see him as a friend. He’s a nice jack, you know? Well I guess you do. Anyway, they wouldn’t tell me any more than that. I’m a naturally curious person – which I suppose is why I ended up in this spying gig.”

Yuuri was tempted to say that there were other professions for naturally curious people – in the sciences, for example – but decided to remain silent.

“So I got in touch with a few of my contacts. One of them got back to me and told me Victor’d been taken to the Coughlin Institute, which was annexed to Columbia University. Today, when you met me, that was the first time I’d ever gone there. I wanted to scout out the area, see who was coming and going, think about the best ways to get in and stay undetected, and so on. I’ve got mid-level clearance to enter government buildings with my chip, but I saw people holding up some kind of ring to a panel, and I don’t know where to get one of those. Anyway, I wasn’t planning a daring rescue or anything; I just wanted to find Victor, make sure he was OK, and ask him what’d happened, since he wasn’t answering calls on his tablet or chip. I guess they were blocking them while they had him in there. Well, then I saw you go inside with a woman; I didn’t recognize her, but I recognized you. That got my interest, because I knew you’d been missing all that time. I waited for you to come back out, so I could talk to you. I have to say, I never expected it’d be while you had Victor on your shoulders and people shooting at you.” He paused. “Funny how we bumped into each other like that.”

 _Funny…_ though maybe there was a reason for it, Yuuri thought. Maybe he’d exited the portal in that time and place for that purpose – so he could meet Chris. He was thankful his grandmother had mentioned him, because otherwise he would have instantly seen him as a threat and stunned him. It could be useful to have the help of an agent who was on their side for once. And Yuuri discovered he kind of liked him. He hoped the favorable impression lasted.

Realizing that Chris was looking at him expectantly, he said, “I had no idea you’d be there, if that’s what you mean. I…recognized you from Victor’s photos too,” he lied, knowing the truth would sound ridiculous.  

“Him and that aircam. He takes photos of everything.” But he seemed pleased to think that Victor had taken some of him.

The taxi stopped outside a dark gray stone building sandwiched between others along a fairly quiet tree-lined street, with a blue awning in front on which was written in gold cursive “The Belmont,” and glass revolving doors. They supported Victor between them as they had before; Chris quickly booked a room at the mechanized service counter, and they made their way down the hall. “I got us one on this floor,” he said. “I figured it’d be best not to carry him any further than we have to.”

“Good idea.”

The room was a generous size, though warm and slightly musty, as if it was in need of a good airing. White walls, photos of beaches and mountains, a window with blue curtains drawn, matching blue carpet, nothing special, nothing repulsive. Yuuri was flooded with relief when they got inside and could lay Victor down on one of the two double beds. Chris hadn’t asked him what kind of sleeping arrangements he’d want, and he’d been past caring at the time, but this seemed like something that should cover most eventualities. Yuuri didn’t want to speculate about those at the moment.

“Hey, Friday, you got a name?” Chris called out.

“Good morning, sir. I’m Fred. How can I help you?”

“Fred?” Chris echoed with a little laugh. “Who names this stuff? OK, Fred, turn the temp down in here by a few degrees. And open an air vent or something.”

“Certainly, sir.”

While Chris leaned with his back against a desk, Yuuri tried to make sure Victor would be comfortable until he awoke. He took his backpack off and unzipped his jacket. Shoes and socks off – ? No, he’d probably want to get up when he felt able. Should he sit here on the bed and wait? Surely it wouldn’t be long before Victor came around. Not unless something had gone horribly wrong with the tranquilizer. But he didn’t seem to have had an adverse reaction to it…

“Yuuri…” came Chris’s voice, as if from a distance. He realized he’d been in thrall to a growing jumble of worries, and went to join him at the desk. “…what are you planning to do when he wakes up?”

Truth be told, he hadn’t thought any further than “talk to him.” Only give him as much information as was needed to help him feel more settled, until he granted Yuuri permission to try to restore his memory. Which of course he’d be able to do. Quickly, in fact. That was a plan…wasn’t it? So why was his heart suddenly in his throat?

“You did have a plan, didn’t you?” Chris said, looking at him as if he knew the answer anyway.

“I…It might take some time to get his memory back. The person who did that to him used ESP. She explained to me what she did, but…I’m not completely sure yet what I’ll need to do to reverse it.”

“You fill me with confidence, amigo.”

“I’ll do it,” Yuuri insisted quietly, though he wondered which of them, Chris or himself, he was more intent on reassuring.

“And until then – I really think these questions need to be asked, though I know they’re not nice to think about – what do we do with him? We can’t just keep him under lock and key. I can’t take him back to the apartment; they’ll look for him there. He might try to go straight back to the Institute.”

Yuuri took his own backpack off and put it on the floor, then removed his fleece, draping it over the desk chair, and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking beyond getting him out of there. I know it sounds really short-sighted, but you don’t understand what we’d just been through – what _I’d_ just been through – and I don’t think I could explain right now. Though I guess I still should’ve taken some time to think it out in more detail. Anyway,” he added defensively, as if Chris had tried to argue, “what else could I have done? They wouldn’t let him leave, so it wasn’t as if I could’ve walked in and persuaded him to go with me. He wouldn’t even have known who I was.”

“We’ve got a problem, all right.” Chris stroked his chin again. “Well, since we don’t have a plan, and I can’t think of anything better myself, I guess we better be ready to try to convince him, between the two of us, of what we’re saying. Show him some of that ESP stuff if you have to. That combusted me for sure. And unless they’ve wiped years off his memory, he’ll remember who _I_ am, and that’ll be something.”

Yuuri was about to reply when he heard a quiet moan from the bed, and turned to see Victor moving slightly, as if in a dream. His eyelids began to flutter.

Chris laid a hand on Yuuri’s arm, pulling his attention back. “Have you got a gun?”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “Well yeah, a stun gun – but why?”

“Keep it handy in case he gets difficult.”

“What?” Yuuri said, feeling a spark of outrage.

“You’re talking to someone who knows about this stuff. We don’t know what condition he’ll be in. If he’ll be disoriented or confused. He might try to escape, and then what?” He patted his pocket. “I’m keeping my own gun handy.”

“So he goes from being tranquilized and hauled around the city, to being stunned? No fucking way. I’ve already treated him worse than an animal today, and he’s my…my partner.”

“Yuuri.” It was the first time he’d heard Chris speak firmly. His voice wasn’t loud or sharp, but it was deep, and had a certain gravity to it. “If he escapes, we might never see him again. Which do you think would be the better option in that case?”

Yuuri stared at him defiantly; but the more he thought about it, the more he had to grudgingly agree that he had a point. “Fine,” he said, taking his stun gun out and slapping it down on the desk.

There was a sigh from the bed, and the sound of movement on the mattress. Yuuri turned to find Victor sitting up, blue eyes blinking at him.  


	68. Chapter 68

The room was silent, apart from the sounds of traffic muffled through the curtained window. Finally, Yuuri spoke. “Victor,” he said softly, starting forward; but Chris stuck out an arm to bar his way. Standing still now, Yuuri added, “How do you feel? How’s your head? Does it hurt at all?”

“Hang on,” Chris told him. “Give him a chance to take it all in.”

Victor raked a hand back through his bangs and over his head, looking around the room with a wrinkled brow, his gaze eventually settling back on the two people by the desk. “Chris…?” He sounded as if he were awakening from a deep sleep and was struggling to get his bearings. “What are you doing here? Why are you dressed in black like that? What is this place?” His expression went blank for a moment, then he looked back at Chris in concern and perhaps a touch of panic. “My chip isn’t working. How did I get here? And…” He looked at Yuuri. “Who are you?”

Yuuri felt as if he’d been slapped in the face, though it was only what he’d expected to hear. This was going to be even harder than he’d imagined.

“This is Yuuri,” Chris told him. “He got you out of the Coughlin Institute, and I helped him. There’s a lot to explain, and we’re gonna need you to listen. I know it’s confusing right now, but – ”

“Got me out? I’m not supposed to leave. I’m not well, Chris; I’ve got amnesia and fainting spells from hitting my head in a fall.”

“Victor, you’re fine – there’s nothing wrong with you,” Yuuri said, and Victor turned to look at him with eyes full of distrust; sharp blue that cut into him. “You’re not injured. There wasn’t any fall. What you’re calling fainting spells were tranquilizer injections. They were keeping you in the compound until they could be sure your memory wasn’t going to return. Because once you got it back, you would’ve been straight out of there.”

Anger had settled on Victor’s brow to mingle with the distrust, and Yuuri felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched. “Who _are_ you, and on what grounds are you making all these claims? Why should I believe you?”

Yuuri swallowed. He was aware of Chris following the conversation and probably judging that it wasn’t going well so far. “I’m…a friend. We met during…during the time you’ve forgotten. I want to help you get your memory back. Then none of this will be confusing. Victor, if you’ll just let me try – ”

“And we’re on a first-name basis, are we, even though to my knowledge we’ve never met?”

Yuuri stared at him, his cheeks pinking and his pulse speeding up. Somehow he was going to have to grow a tougher skin, very quickly, if he stood any chance of dealing adequately with the situation. “I – ”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Victor said more gently. “Maybe I do know you. But I honestly don’t remember. I was talking in the Institute with a woman called Willow who checks on me there sometimes. The next thing I know, I’m waking up here. It’s disorienting, to say the least.” He eyed them both. “I’d appreciate it if one of you could tell me exactly what happened, and why.”

“Willow helped me get you out of there,” Yuuri told him. “She gave you a tranquilizer dose. I…carried you out while you were unconscious.” Shock crossed Victor’s face, and Yuuri felt himself blenching inside. No, he didn’t suppose Victor would like hearing this. “People were shooting at me, and tried to follow me outside – ”

“And that’s where I stepped in and gave him a hand,” Chris added.

Victor’s mouth dropped open, and he looked at him with wide eyes.

“I work for the CIA, Victor. I was trying to find out what’d happened to you, why you’d disappeared, when Yuuri here turned up with the goods so to speak.”

Victor’s expression froze for a moment. Then he ran another hand through his hair and laughed. The sound of it sent a chill through Yuuri. There was no humor in it; it was laced with incredulity, and a hint of desperation. “ _You_ work for the CIA? You two got me out of the Institute? People were shooting at you? But why? Why are we here, and what did you do to my chip?”

Yuuri saw Chris glance deliberately at the stun gun on the desk. He shook his head briefly. _Way too soon, Chris. Anyway, if I stun him, we’ll have the same problem when he wakes up, plus the added complication that he’ll be even less inclined to trust us._ “Victor, please, just let me try to restore your memory,” he said. “There’s a lot you don’t understand – ”

“You’ve got that right.”

“ – but you _will_ understand, once I’m done.”

“No one’s doing anything until I understand _first._ Unless I’m officially your prisoner.” His gaze raked them both again. “Is that it? Is that why my chip isn’t working?”

Chris let out a long breath while Yuuri wondered how to respond, feeling like he was slowly sinking into a quagmire of his own making. It seemed Victor would prefer to have him here all day, telling him everything in minute detail, not necessarily believing any of it. “We’re all in danger from surveillance,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “The government and the Institute conduct it via the chip. They can hear everything you say; monitor everything you do. Victor, before they wiped your memory, you and I were on the run from them. Once they caught us, and made you forget, they brought you back to the Institute to continue your work like nothing ever happened.”

“I was caught but you weren’t?”

“You saved me,” Yuuri muttered. “It’s…it’d be hard to explain right now.”

Victor looked at Chris, seemingly in the hope that he would confirm or deny this, but he just looked at Yuuri in turn.

“We were on the run?” Victor said. “Why?”

“He’s not going to believe this,” Chris said to Yuuri in a low voice.

“Believe what?” Victor echoed.

Yuuri gazed at him steadily. “That you and I have ESP. The government sees people like us as a threat.”

Victor’s eyes shot open wide again, and his laugh this time contained a shade of scorn. It was not a sound Yuuri had heard from him before, and it bit. “I don’t have ESP,” he said with a shaky smirk.

“And the people who they see as the biggest threats – they hunt them down,” Yuuri continued. They have a blocking chip – _your_ blocking chip, the one you invented – ” Victor gave a visible start at this. “ – inserted in their head, so they can’t use their ESP, or…sometimes they kill them.”

Fear flickered in Victor’s eyes. “This is all complete fantasy,” he breathed. “You know that, don’t you? Chris – are you two trying to convince me I’ve lost my mind?”

“Why else do you think they didn’t want you to leave the compound?” Yuuri said. “They were afraid something might jog your memory. Or that I or someone else you know might find you and tell you these things. I didn’t want to have to do it now – I know how much it hurt you the first time you found out. If you’d just let me try to help you – ”

“I don’t believe you,” Victor whispered, moving further back on the bed. “Either of you.” He shot a burning look at Chris. “I thought I knew you. I was obviously wrong.” Then his eyes rested on Yuuri. “And you…I don’t know who you are, or what your interest here is…unless…would you describe yourself as a fan of mine?”

Yuuri blinked, taken aback. “What? A fan? I’m a neuroscientist, like you.”

“What do you call the prominent population of melanin-containing cells located immediately internal to the crus cerebri?”

“The substantia nigra.”

“What’s the mechanism of action of tolcapone?”

“It’s a COMT inhibitor that maximizes the uptake of L-dopa into the brain. Are we finished with the neuroscience 101 quiz?”

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. I’m Dr. Yuuri Katsuki. I work – used to work – at MIT.”

“Katsuki…” Victor mumbled. “I have a vague recollection of coming across your name before. Published papers…aphrodisiacs.”

Chris let out a muted guffaw, and Yuuri shot him an annoyed glance. “You guys get paid for researching that stuff? I’d do it for free.”

“Fucking hell,” Yuuri muttered. Could there be a more inappropriate time for this? “Victor – ”

But Victor had neither been sidetracked nor amused. “So,” he continued, addressing Yuuri, “leaving aside for now the whole issue of what happened back at the Institute – why are you standing here claiming we both have ESP? Surely what you ought to be doing is visiting a psychiatrist instead of kidnapping a fellow neuroscientist.”

Yuuri simply stared again. How different this was from the Victor in the office at MIT who’d taken him in his arms when he’d first told him about the ESP. He wondered if he would ever get him back, then pushed the thought out of his mind.

Victor now turned to Chris. “And how did you get pulled into this?”

“I – ”

Yuuri held up a hand. “It’s OK, Chris. Let me show him I’m telling the truth.” _[The Institute put your own blocking chip in your head, as well as the Cloud chip. I removed them both. So you could use your ESP. Like this.]_

Victor gasped into the silence of the room, his eyes saucers as they met Yuuri’s.

“What are you doing?” Chris asked.

“I was communicating with him…telepathically. In a sense.” _[I used an invention of your own making to destroy the chips,]_ he continued. _[Let me show you.]_ He dug in his backpack and took out the ultrasonic device, which he handed to Victor, who examined it with intense curiosity.

“ _I_ made this? Why?”

 _[Like I said. It destroys chips. One of your life’s goals was to do that to everyone you’d ever operated on, if they agreed to it. I didn’t want to have to tell you all this, because you won’t understand – ]_   

“Of course I don’t understand. My life’s work _is_ to put the blocking chip in people’s brains – to help them. Why would I want to remove it?” The spark of fear returned to his eyes. “And how are you sending those thoughts and images into my mind?” He looked at them both and shook his head, his remaining composure beginning to shatter. “This isn’t real. This _cannot_ be real. I’m having a psychotic break…or, or…”

Chris’s eyes met Yuuri’s and then he looked down at the stun gun again, and Yuuri again shook his head. He saw Chris reach into his pocket for his own gun and made a firm quick gesture to tell him to stop, then looked at Victor, weeping inside to see him in such obvious distress. “Vitenka, please listen to me – ”

“You don’t get to call me that. _No one_ has _ever_ gotten to call me that. How do you know all these things? About the blocking chip, my work, the Institute? It’s all classified.”

“You told me. And…I’ve been involved, in a way. Like I said, they were trying to hunt us both down. First me, then you, when you developed your ESP.”

“And how exactly did that miracle occur?”

Yuuri felt himself blush. “We…we’ve never been completely sure.”

“Go on, take a guess,” Victor pressed, his voice harsh, eyes bright. “How about if I start. I was cursed by Baba Yaga. My apartment was sucked up by a tornado and now I’m somewhere over the rainbow. Because that makes as much sense as everything else. So, Dr. Katsuki, while you were busy tranquilizing me, did you slip in some psilocin? A dose of magic mushrooms, just to make sure I believed everything you told me?”

“No, of course not,” Yuuri forced out from a constricting throat.

“Either that, or I really am losing my mind.”

“You’re not crazy, Victor.”

“I don’t – ”

“ – like that word. I know.”

“Jesus,” Chris said. His gaze had been switching back and forth between them as if he’d been watching a game of ping pong. “You two already sound like an old married couple. I can’t believe you don’t remember him, Victor.”

“When did _you_ meet him?” Victor demanded.

“Today, as a matter of fact. When I saw him carrying you on his shoulders out of the Institute. I decided to go along with it because of the things _you_ told me about him. Before you both disappeared.”

Victor fell silent, taking this in.

“I think you’re just confusing him more, Chris,” Yuuri said.

“ _I_ am?” The room was quiet again. Then he added, “I know – try showing him some of that ESP you can do. Like you showed me.”

“No,” Victor said quickly. “No, I…I’ve had enough for now. I need some time to think.”

Yuuri nodded. “Of course.”

“By myself. Away from…all this.”

Yuuri and Chris exchanged glances.

“Is that a problem?” Victor inquired.

“It wouldn’t be safe,” Yuuri said.

“For who?”

“For you.”

“And I’m supposed to believe I’m safe here now, with you? After what you did to me?”

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Yuuri said in what he hoped was a placating tone. “Please, Victor, calm down and try to listen – ”

Before he realized what was happening, Victor lunged forward and grabbed the stun gun on the desk. Chris pulled his laser gun out, but it instantly erupted into a shower of sparks, and he dropped it with an oath. Victor scrambled to the other side of the bed, training the stun gun in their direction, the shock having returned to his face, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just managed to do.

“You pulled a gun on me,” Victor said flatly to Chris.

“It was on stun. You can’t think I’d actually want to kill you, Victor.”

Victor’s eyes darted from one of them to the other. “I don’t know _what_ to think.”

Everything was falling to pieces, Yuuri thought, because he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to come up with a better way of dealing with Victor when he awoke. All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around him. Tell him he’d had a bad dream and everything was OK. A bad dream. That was what this was, he thought as he took in the sight of Victor aiming the gun at him.

Chris held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “You don’t know what you’re doing, amigo,” he said.

“I know exactly what I’m doing. I have no intention of being your prisoner. If you’ve given me some kind of psychedelic drug, I want it to wear off.” He put his backpack on, his eyes never leaving them. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Katsuki, but I really can’t stay.”

“No,” Yuuri whispered. Then more loudly, as Victor backed up toward the door and opened it, “No! Where are you going? Don’t go back – you can’t go back to the Institute. You don’t understand; you’ve forgotten. You don’t know how dangerous it is! Please, Victor, believe me!”

Victor was in the hall now, and pulled the door shut after him. Yuuri and Chris leaped up at once.

“You realize he can and probably will try to stun us, and we’re not armed,” Chris said as they dashed toward the door.

“I don’t care,” was all Yuuri said as they ran into the hall. When they rounded the first corner, Yuuri caught a glimpse of Victor whipping around the next one. “Victor, stop!” he called. He knew the lobby wasn’t far, and they’d all be there soon. They took another corner, and found themselves staring down a long corridor leading to the sunlit entryway of the building, which Victor was rapidly approaching.

“Makkachin,” Yuuri called to him. “Anna…St. Isaac’s Cathedral…vacations on the Black Sea…you danced ballet to Glazunov’s ‘Autumn’ – you were going to do that before you decided to become a neuroscientist…” His voice died away as Victor paused by the revolving doors, shooting him a look of surprise before pushing through and out onto the street, still clutching the stun gun.

“What was all that about?” Chris gasped out as they arrived at the doors.

“Never mind. Come on – we’ll lose him. He’s so fast.”

“He’s got the gun anyway, Yuuri. You honestly think we have any chance of stopping him?”

“We have to try,” Yuuri replied, setting his lips in determination as he went through the doors and ran down the sidewalk in the direction Victor had gone. “Shit,” he breathed as he saw him entering a taxi a good distance further down. “Victor!” he called, but the door slammed and the vehicle pulled out into the road. His ESP signal quickly faded away and was gone.

“We ought to get into another taxi and try to go after him,” Chris said. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”

“No.” Chris looked at him like he was out of his mind, and he said a little heatedly, “Do you want to reinforce his idea that we’re trying to take him prisoner?” He folded his arms across his chest and tried to master his whirling thoughts. He wasn’t Victor’s keeper or captor. But at the same time, Victor wasn’t aware of the danger he was in. Yuuri was furious with himself for the mess he’d made of everything. And yet he didn’t know how he could’ve done things any differently. Victor was intelligent, resourceful, and stubborn when he felt the need. It was never going to be an easy task to convince him of the truth and earn his trust. But what to do now?

“You destroyed his blocking chip so he could use his ESP, you said.” Chris was glaring at him. “Well that was a bright idea, wasn’t it? You did the same thing to his Cloud chip. So no one could track him. Including us. I have contacts who could find him in a second if he still had that chip in his head. You know, back in the alley when you took charge and did all that flink stuff, I thought for a minute what a good agent you’d make. But I take it all back. We’re in the shit, bo. How’re we gonna find him?”

 _You think I haven’t thought these things myself? Thanks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot._ Yuuri turned with a huff and strode off down the sidewalk.

“Where are _you_ going?” Chris called to him.

Yuuri didn’t answer, but Chris didn’t pursue him; instead, he stood behind, cursing to himself. Remembering to shield despite how distracted he felt, Yuuri turned the corner of the block and came upon a small covered market, where he wandered aimlessly. The aroma of grilling hot dogs and burgers, the shouts of the merchants hawking their wares, and the colorful panoply of goods on offer were oddly comforting in a way. Reminders, perhaps, that day-to-day life carried on for the rest of the population, no matter what happened to himself or Victor. These people had no need to fear agents or the Institute or portals to strange places.

After a few minutes, the tightness around his throat had eased, his heart rate had steadied, and his mind felt sharper. He could see now that he’d been filled with reckless confidence after his meeting with his grandmother and Bubbles. _This is what needs to be done,_ he’d thought, _and I’m going to go do it._ The all-guns-blazing approach. Surely that only worked in the movies – and usually not even then. But he couldn’t blame anyone for his own stupidity but himself.

Walking around out here like this wasn’t going to solve anything either, though. Victor needed him. He left the market, shivering in his T-shirt when the breeze blew, and found his way back to the hotel, wondering where Chris had gone.

He’d at least had the foresight to keep his key card in his pocket, and let himself into the room, which smelled of pizza. Chris was sitting on top of the desk, with an unopened cardboard box next to him labelled “Luigi’s Pizza Pies.” At Yuuri’s quizzical look, he said, “I was hungry, plus it’s helping me to calm down, OK? I had the Friday order it. But I’ve got something to tell you,” he added hastily. “Victor called me on my tablet a few minutes ago.”

Yuuri ran over to him. “He did?”

“No visual, just a voice call.”

“But they can trace calls.”

“I reminded him of that, and we made it quick. I think he was still in the taxi, so at least he wasn’t giving away a more permanent location like a hotel. Don’t get a new chip put in, I said. Don’t give away anything about where you are or what you’re doing. Don’t go to the apartment cause that’s the first place they’ll look. I said I don’t understand everything about how the Institute works myself, but I know about surveillance. He, um, took the opportunity to tear me off a strip for spying on him and not telling him. Well, you know, in that quiet way he has. But if he’d felt _that_ flayed, he wouldn’t have rung, so…”

“What else did he say?” Yuuri prompted him.

“It was more what I said to him. I just told him to keep in touch. He’ll find a way, if he wants to. If anything, he’s smart.”

Yuuri pulled the desk chair out and sat down. “That’s not good enough. He might not decide he needs to get in touch until someone’s pointing a gun at him. Or until he’s back at the Institute, and they’ve locked him up somewhere, and Crow’s on his way…” A shiver passed through him. “Jesus, no,” he whispered.

“Who’s Crow?”

“I’ve got to contact him, whether he likes it or not,” Yuuri said, ignoring the question.

“How?”

“ESP. I need to sit and concentrate. You can…I don’t know. Eat some pizza.”

To his mild surprise, Chris opened the box and pulled out a slice, taking a bite while he watched Yuuri. He wanted to tell him this wasn’t a magic trick, he wasn’t performing; but he supposed there was no harm in having an audience, even if all Chris would experience was silence while he stared into the void, his mind elsewhere. Chris’s concern about Victor had cleared any lingering doubts Yuuri had had about his motives, at least, and he appreciated his help.

A nervous chill passed down Yuuri’s spine as he recalled how the presences were able to contact him while he could never seem to do the same. And yet, he and Victor had no trouble reaching out to each other via ESP at the commune, in their house or when they were at work. Maybe it was a localized phenomenon. Or maybe, just maybe, they’d been together long enough to have forged a link. Something like quantum entanglement on a macroscopic scale.

_Please let that be the case. Please let me be able to contact him._

He focused on the man he loved. Out there somewhere, alone, confused. Searched with his mind, feeling for that one presence. He willed with all his heart to find him…but it was like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

“Anything happen yet?” came Chris’s voice.

“No. And it won’t if you interrupt me.”

Then suddenly he recalled that special moment he’d carry with him for the rest of his life. When they’d looked into each other’s eyes…and seen the light of what they truly were. He’d relived it many times since then, but it still sent a frisson of awe through him. It hadn’t been the only time they’d been revealed that way, but it had been the most intense so far. Surely no one could experience the essence of another person like that and not be able to find it again if they searched. He called out to it, light to light. The beautiful white star that blazed across the cosmos.

…and there it was, as if it had been right in front of him all the time, invisible. It hadn’t taken long, after all, once he’d known how to do it. For a moment, he was lost in feelings of love and joy, dancing in orbit…but there would be another time to appreciate this more fully. In the physical world, Victor needed him.

Yuuri sensed that they had opened some kind of communication now, though Victor was remaining passive, witnessing and waiting. If he tried, Yuuri thought, maybe he could tempt him into engaging in something more dynamic. Though if that didn’t work, he knew he at least had Victor’s attention.

_[I only want to help you.]_

_[You don’t understand how vulnerable you are.]_

_[Other people with ESP could attack you. It’s happened before.]_

Yuuri sighed and kept trying.

_[Your defenses are down.]_

And finally, a response. _[Why would they do that?]_

_[I told you. They want to capture or kill us. If you go away like this, you could get hurt.]_

_[You knocked me out and forcefully removed me. I wanted some time to think about that. It’s a lot to take in.]_

It hit Yuuri like a punch to the gut, resonating with his own feelings of guilt about how he’d treated Victor. But then, to his astonishment, a ripple of laughter escaped him. There was certainly a tiny bit of dark humor in that thought, too.

“Have you gotten through to him?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, and then shushed him. _[You have to shield. You said you imagined yourself being surrounded by a transparent suit of armor as strong as diamond. Renew it as often as you can remember.]_

_[I’m just supposed to imagine this and it’ll happen?]_

_[Not in reality. But it’ll give you psychic protection.]_

He felt a wave of amusement lapping at him and was sure Victor was laughing.

_[I’m begging you, please take this seriously. I don’t want you to get hurt.]_

_[Yes, I…I know. I can feel that.]_

_[Good. Then please do it, for your own sake.]_

_[I’ll try.]_

There was a pause. Victor was still there, seemingly content to wait for Yuuri to send something else.

 _[Where are you going? Where are you now?]_ Though he knew place names and images were problematic if not impossible. Victor didn’t attempt a response, however, and he wondered what else to do. There was no need to keep imploring him to return to the hotel. He knew that was what Yuuri wanted. Yuuri drifted with the feel of him, maintaining their connection.

_[Do you know what they told me at the Institute? They said I had a disturbed fan who might try to stalk me.]_

_[Do you believe that?]_

_[Of course. In league with my roommate, the CIA agent. Sending invisible thoughtwaves at me.]_ Another little ripple of amusement. He was quickly finding his confidence again, Yuuri thought. Though maybe from his own point of view, that wasn’t good. A confident Victor might be even more difficult to deal with than a frightened and defensive one.

_[You know as well as I do that those invisible thoughtwaves exist. Electromagnetic synaptic transmission. You’re the transcranial magnetic stimulation expert, after all.]_

_[So you_ are _a scientist.]_

_[I thought we’d established that before. Anyway, what are we doing now, if not exchanging thoughtwaves?]_

Another pause. _[Where are you now?]_ Yuuri sent. _[Still in the taxi? Somewhere else?]_ But Victor didn’t seem inclined to try to answer such questions. Yuuri waited.

_[What would you have done once you’d gotten me out of the Institute, if my memory couldn’t be restored? Or if I refused to let you try…What was your Plan B?]_

_[I didn’t think that far forward,]_ Yuuri confessed with some embarrassment.

_[Have you always been this impulsive?]_

Yuuri felt a twinge of irritation and took a deep breath. _[It’s not just two years of your life you’re missing. It’s crucial information about things that happened. Not just about me, but about the Institute and the ESP. I assumed, with that genius brain of yours, you’d decide it was worth giving me a chance.]_

_[You make a lot of assumptions.]_

_[I’m sorry about the way I…removed you. When someone’s psychotic, sometimes you have to make decisions on their behalf, for their own good.]_

_[I’m not psychotic.]_ Victor was firm on that point. At least he didn’t still think he was having a psychotic break.

_[No. But you’ve lost your memory. It’s impaired you.]_

_[Impaired? I can’t know that.]_

_[Take a goddamn evidence-based approach, then. You’re a scientist, aren’t you?]_

_[Are you always this belligerent?]_

Yuuri could sense Victor was annoyed. But there was fear remaining too, though he was trying to hide it. It was so difficult to know what to tell him. If he revealed the true extent of his feelings, while Victor couldn’t access his own, it might drive him away completely.

 _[_ _I’d rather you didn’t contact me like this,]_ Victor sent. _[It’s…invasive. When I want to talk to you, you’ll know.]_

 _[All right,]_ Yuuri returned, trying to hide his disappointment. _[But please shield like I said. And promise me you’ll contact me the second something goes wrong – if you see someone; if they try to hurt you…and I’ll come and help. Don’t go see…]_ He thought about the Russian psychiatrist who Victor said co-founded the Institute with him. Names, words, letters…all impossible. Yuuri didn’t know what he looked like or where he lived. But he did his best to get the idea across, and he eventually sensed an understanding from Victor. _[He’s either colossally naïve, or he’s in on everything, which means he’s not your friend. I know which option I’d go for.]_ There was a spike of shock and fear. He’d hated to put Victor through this once, and now he was experiencing it all over again; the betrayal of someone he thought had been a longtime friend and colleague. Yuuri wanted, _needed_ , to be there to hold him; to help him. But he didn’t even know where the hell he was.

_[How do you know about him?]_

_[You told me.]_

_[I’d like to believe that.]_

_[I hope you can.]_

A pause…and then, _[Goodbye.]_

Yuuri sat back, his consciousness returning to the hotel room. Victor had cut off contact. He…oh god, he was shielding – and apparently he himself was included on his blacklist. There was a solid wall, and he didn’t think he’d be able to get through it if he tried. He ran a hand over his face. Well, maybe he should take comfort in that, he told himself. Though he could’ve handled the situation better, he knew. He’d allowed himself to get wound up when Victor had only been struggling to make sense of things. And now…now Victor could be anywhere. Didn’t want to talk to him. Wouldn’t allow it. Yuuri wondered if and when he’d see him again. Jesus. They were both so stubborn. _Why_ were they both so stubborn?

“I guess he cut the call?” Chris said, looking at him with a half-eaten slice of pizza poised in his hand.

Yuuri felt nauseated by the smell. “He…yeah, he’s done for now. I don’t know where he is, but he knows how to get my attention if he wants to.”

“Let’s hope he wants to,” Chris said, taking a bite and eyeing him.

“How can you eat at a time like this?”

“Like I said, it calms me down.” He chewed and swallowed. “Let’s hope he doesn’t go to the Institute and we end up back where we started from.” He lifted an eyebrow. “But next time? Maybe _you_ should let _me_ do the planning.”


	69. Chapter 69

Yuuri hardly left the hotel room over the next couple of days. He kept hope alive in his heart that Victor would come back, but he didn’t. Chris came to visit on the second day. As soon as he stepped into the room, he took out a black scanning device of some kind and held it in front of him, then looked at the screen. “No bugs. We’re good.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri said, staring as Chris whipped the gadget away.

“He’s not been here since he disappeared?” Chris asked, sitting on top of the desk the way he seemed to feel comfortable with. He was wearing light-colored baggy cargo pants, white tennis shoes, and a pink shirt with a tan suit jacket casually draped over his shoulders. A pair of sunglasses was perched on top of his blond curls. He looked like he was on vacation.

“No,” Yuuri answered, sitting down in the chair next to him. “Are you sure no one followed you here?”

Chris laughed as if it were an absurd question. “If I don’t want to be seen, I won’t be seen, trust me on that. I didn’t exactly come through the front door this time. Though I’m 99.9% sure no one followed me from the apartment. I’ve seen them hanging around there off and on, mind you, but not when I left today.”

Yuuri looked up at him. “Oh?”

“I’m not usually in much during the week, but I thought it was worth hanging around more often than usual, just to get a feel for what’s going down. I’m between jobs anyway, and my agent’s being kind of useless at the moment; you’d think she’d be able to find me some kind of show to be in, seeing how this is New York and all. Anyway, if Victor snuck back at any point, there’s been no sign that he’s been inside the apartment. They did ask me, though, and I let them come in and have a look around – not that I really could’ve said no…”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Agents. Not like me. And not the theatrical kind. Real grim men-in-black types. They turned up the day we sprang Victor out. Had a pretty thorough search and asked a lot of questions. Gave me orders to tell them if I saw Victor. As if.”

“You haven’t heard from him?”

“He hasn’t called me again, no, though that’s probably the smart thing to do, seeing as how it could be traced. I’ve asked my contacts to be on the lookout for him. But if someone wants to lose themselves in this city, it isn’t hard to do. Especially if they don’t have a chip.” He looked pointedly at Yuuri. “You two exchanged any more of that ESP?”

Yuuri sighed and rested his forehead in his hand. “No,” he said quietly. “I…don’t think he’s had his chip replaced or gone back to the Institute. They would’ve tracked him down.”

“I could’ve told you that.” He paused, then patted Yuuri’s shoulder. “You OK for food and things to wear and stuff? You don’t seem to have anything but your backpack.”

“Thanks, I’m fine. There’s an outdoor market near here; I’ve been there a few times. I don’t want to go out too much in case…in case…well, you know.”

“In case Victor decides to show up.” Yuuri nodded. “I’m worried too, amigo. But he’s good at taking care of himself. Hey, lemme tell you about the time when…”

When, apparently, he’d talked Victor into attending an aftershow party featuring some A-list celebrities who had been performing in a Broadway musical, and Chris had gotten invitations through a friend of a friend. He reckoned he and Victor might have stood a chance of roping one of them for a steer if they hadn’t gotten so drunk; and he proceeded to illustrate their antics while pausing several times to have a good laugh. It was a side of Victor Yuuri hadn’t encountered, and found he wasn’t all that curious about, at least not right now. All he wanted was _his_ Victor back. He felt like he was wearing down with the effort of constantly telling himself that it would happen; that he hadn’t lost him for good, fated to spend the rest of his life running on his own from agents. The thought stung him now, and he wiped away a silent tear.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Chris said in a sympathetically low voice. “Maybe you had to be there.”

“It’s OK. I’m just…this isn’t easy. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay here forever.”

“Give it a little while longer, I’d say.” Chris patted his shoulder again. “I’ll be back to check on you, don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I’d better go call my agent. Try to get Victor to stay here, if you see him.”

Yuuri didn’t see him, but occasionally received the ghosts of feelings and images that Victor seemed to have sent unconsciously. Something that looked like a park. A river. Neither clear enough to be identifiable. Hints of lingering fear and confusion. Nothing acute that suggested Victor was in any immediate trouble. Just a man on his own, and uncertain. Yuuri tried to contact him on a few occasions, despite having been told not to, but couldn’t get through. In a way it was encouraging, because it meant he’d taken the idea of shielding seriously, and it was working.

But god, Yuuri missed him. Sleeping alone at night was worse than it had ever been before they’d gotten together. He even missed the little snuffling noises Victor sometimes made that he’d called snoring. Not to mention the warmth of his body and his touch. The emptiness was there in the daytime, too. In the unbroken quiet of the room, save for the vehicles passing by outside, or occasional shouts and laughs from people on the sidewalk. The background static of his ESP presence, gone. Yuuri had been used to living like this for years, of course. Withdrawing into himself, his work, the Cloud, and so on. Living, yes…but he’d felt _alive_ with Victor in a way he never had before. In so many more ways than he could ever have imagined in those days of staring at the framed photo on his office wall.

Then it occurred to him that he’d lost that photo. Along with the one of Freddie Mercury. The most important possessions he’d had on his altar at Children of Gaia. They’d been put on a shelf in their house at the Elkhorn Project, Yuuri no longer ashamed of Victor being able to see them. For all he knew, the agents had ransacked the house and burned it and all their things to the ground by now. He took a shuddering breath as he thought about it while sitting on his bed with his back against the wall, tears sliding down his cheeks.

 _You wouldn’t have been able to go back anyway,_ he told himself. _Not now that they know you were there._ Yuuri had been thinking of it more and more as their home, rather than just a house. So what if it was small. It was all they’d needed. And the memories that had been made there…well, for now at least, Yuuri treasured those for them both. Not just the wonderful sex, though that was certainly a feature. Just holding each other – going to sleep at night, or as a greeting when one of them got back from work. Cooking together, or for each other. Victor had sometimes helped him come up with ideas for lessons to teach at the school, and occasionally he worked with Victor on the tech he brought home. Living their lives together. It hadn’t been that long ago. But losing what they’d had was like losing a limb.

The possessions he knew he’d miss the most were small and simple. Photos. Not the old ones from his office wall, though those were still precious. These Victor had taken with his aircam, gotten printed out and framed, and placed in the alcove near their bed. They were from the night when Yuuri had played music on his laptop for the first time, and they’d danced. He’d felt so _exuberant._ Maybe Victor still had the photos on his aircam or tablet. But…what if he never regained his memory?

_I’ll just have to get him to fall in love with me all over again. How hard can it be?_

More tears rolled down his face, and not for the last time.

The third night in the hotel, he was in the same position on his bed, attempting to distract himself with a baseball game on the TV. This one didn’t have a remote, but the Friday took voice commands for it; and while it was primarily designed to show holograms, it also displayed in 2D. The major league season had only just begun, and Yuuri was trying and failing to take in the commentators’ discussion of last year’s statistics for the players. He could bring it all up on the screen anyway if he wanted to, from batting averages to number of errors to how many times the player had hit a double-play ball. After the Elkhorn Project, he kind of wanted to be out there doing it himself, anyway. Though he wasn’t currently in a state to be of much use to any team. He felt jittery and hadn’t been sleeping well. Nightmares had visited him, but they’d cleared like the clouds after a storm when he woke up, leaving nothing but faint tattered trails that continued to stir his unease.

He didn’t really want to watch the baseball at all. But it was the most calming thing he could think of to put on. The alternative – sitting by himself in the silence of the room – was worse. There was no Cloud access for him here. He’d gotten too used to living at the commune. Too close to having a normal life, perhaps.

_[Are you still at the hotel?]_

Yuuri’s eyes shot open wide and he sat straight up. _[Yes.]_

_[I’m on my way.]_

Yuuri’s heart leaped with relief and anticipation. He waited for more, but nothing else came. Then from the dark pit that lived somewhere deep inside him came a vision of Victor in handcuffs, arriving outside the door with agents. _No, that’s preposterous,_ he told himself. At the very least, Victor could – and would, he was sure, memory loss or no – warn him via ESP…wouldn’t he?

He scooted to the edge of the bed and took several breaths to try to calm himself. It didn’t help much. Fidgeting with his fingers, he noticed his ring catching the light and glinting silver. He played with the band, turning it around, thinking back to that day in the pagoda when they’d placed these on each other’s fingers. That _was_ a soothing thought, despite the fact that Victor didn’t remember. He lifted his hand and kissed the ring. _I love you, Victor. And I always will._

With the TV off now, he sat in the stillness, keeping his mind open, waiting. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he felt the approach of Victor’s ESP signal, gradually increasing in its intensity. He timed the knock on the door almost to the second, and jumped up, telling himself to _try to stay calm, don’t overreact, don’t scare him away._   

There were no agents with him when Yuuri opened the door. Had he really thought there would be? He was standing there alone, in jeans and his black dragon jacket, his backpack over his shoulders. Looking beautiful and a little lost.

“I haven’t had my chip replaced,” Victor said in a voice that sounded conversational, but in which Yuuri seemed to detect an undertone of nervousness. “It’s…interesting trying to live without one. If that’s the word for it. I haven’t made any calls. I, um, haven’t been to the Institute, or to…to Korovin. I haven’t seen anything suspicious; I don’t think I’m being traced, or anyone’s trailing me. I’ve been shielding, like you told me to – though against what, I can’t say I’m sure. Just so you know. It, um, should be safe to let me in.”

Something had clearly changed in his outlook between the day he’d left the hotel and now, Yuuri thought. He sounded almost apologetic. “Are you going to stand there all night?” he said. “Come on.” He opened the door wider.       

Victor stepped inside the room and glanced around. Yuuri gestured to the easy chair in the corner and sat down himself in the desk chair, leaving a distance of a couple of meters between them. Victor put his backpack on the floor, then removed his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. He was wearing a long-sleeved maroon Henley shirt that he must have had spare in his backpack. Yuuri was also wearing spare clothes, his jeans and teal T-shirt, having kept the hotel drone busy with washing the only two sets of clothing he currently had access to. They sat for a moment and looked at each other.

Yuuri was the first to break the silence. “How are you?” he asked.

“For someone who’s lost two years’ worth of memories and was kidnapped and unchipped and told he’s a fugitive who has ESP? About as well as can be expected, I suppose.”

Yuuri took this in, then couldn’t help but smile and laugh. He was relieved to find Victor doing the same. “Have you had enough money for things?”

Victor nodded. “I managed to get some from my bank after…after I left here.”

“Where have you been?”

“Does it matter?”

Yuuri waited for an answer, watching him.

“A hotel. Out and around.” He gave Yuuri an odd look. “You fuss a lot, you know that? Anyone would think you cared about me.”

There was a pause, and Yuuri felt those eyes on him. “Why did you come back here? You didn’t want to talk to me these past few days.”

“I was thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“Thinking. I do that sometimes.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I have to admit I didn’t get very far, though. But…one thing I thought about was this fussing you do. I never asked…” His voice dropped. “What are you to me? What are we to each other? You said you were a friend. But I think it’s more than that.”

Yuuri shifted in his chair, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Victor – ”

“The way you look at me…like I’m the center of your world.” Yuuri felt pinned by his gaze. “All those things you know about me. You called me Vitenka.” He paused, and Yuuri almost forgot to breathe. “Are we lovers?”

There was little point in hiding the truth now, Yuuri decided. Maybe Victor had come here for this very reason, to ask this question. He seemed to have been reflecting on it for some time. Reluctantly, he nodded, and he saw a flicker of satisfaction in Victor’s face, as if it was the answer he’d been expecting. “We were living together at a commune in California.”

Victor burst out laughing. “What? You’re kidding me. Why?”

“We didn’t go there to be a couple of hippies or anything. It was because it’s an offline community.”

Victor sat back and considered this. Then his gaze slowly and deliberately lingered on Yuuri, who felt his cheeks redden. “Lovers,” he said, as if assessing the idea.

Yuuri forced himself to meet his eyes. “I appreciate the…condition you’re in. I hadn’t intended to tell you. You don’t even know me anymore.”

After a silence, Victor said, “If what you say is true…you’ll know about the birthmark on my right buttock.”

Despite everything, Yuuri laughed and placed his forehead in his hand. Victor might have lost his memory, but he still had the capacity to be as outrageous as ever. “Nice try,” he conceded, sitting up straight again and looking at him.

“Oh?”

“There isn’t one.”

Victor gave him a little grin. Yuuri felt himself getting lost in those sparkling eyes, and it was killing him. He told himself he had to keep his composure. Though Victor often seemed to love nothing more than to try to break it down. And he was good at it. “Fair enough, if that’s how you want to test me. I don’t blame you after…after how things went the other day. I’m asking you to take a lot on faith, and…maybe the way I got you out of the Institute wasn’t the most dignified thing to do to you.”

“That idea occurred to you, did it?”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, though Victor’s tone was mildly rebuking rather than angry, and he seemed to be full of a curiosity that was almost playful. This was a different Victor from the one who had accused him of injecting him with a psychedelic drug and threatened to stun him with his own gun. His heart gave a hopeful little leap. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he continued. “I had to get you out of there, and…I didn’t think you’d listen to me.”

“Am I in the habit of doing that? Not listening to you?”

“No. But think about it, Victor.” Yuuri leaned forward now as he spoke. “Think about how you reacted to what Chris and I told you. From your point of view, presumably you just picked up your work from where you thought you’d left off, not knowing that anything unusual happened in the time you forgot about.”

“That’s true. Though they didn’t want me to leave the compound, so I was doing all my work there. I was cut off from people outside, too; I couldn’t make calls. They said it was until I got well and settled back in, so I wouldn’t get confused – but that line of reasoning didn’t make much sense to me. Besides,” he added, “it’s clear to me that some unusual things _did_ happen to me over the past two years. I developed ESP. I met you. You disappeared, and then I disappeared myself, only to end up back at the Institute missing two years’ worth of memories. I seem to have invented some interesting things, including a device that destroys chips – even though it’d undo the work I’ve done for the Institute.” He looked at Yuuri soberly. “You don’t know how much that bothers me. But the piece of tech you showed me is the kind of thing I can see myself making, right down to its shape and the way it functions. So I must’ve had a reason.” He paused, and his voice quietened. “And…at some point I fell in love. Didn’t I?”

Yuuri stared, searching for words and not finding them. His cheeks pinked again and his gaze dropped to the floor.

“I must have good taste in men, if I chose you.”

Yuuri was sure his face was glowing now. “You’ve always been an incorrigible flirt,” he muttered.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Victor said quietly, with a note of mock surprise.

 _Fuck,_ Yuuri thought, drawing an invisible pattern on the desk with his fingers and avoiding Victor’s eyes as if they were right back at the beginning of their relationship in Boston, when he had no idea how to deal with the intensity of the Victor Nikiforov Experience. It was disconcerting. Embarrassing. Funny. Sexy. And totally ridiculous, considering the situation.

“If you wanted to flirt back…” Victor said, “…I wouldn’t mind.”

Yuuri huffed. “What I _want_ is for you to let me try to restore your memory.” Victor stared and blinked, and Yuuri got the feeling he’d briefly seized the upper hand. “You must’ve known I’d ask if you came back here.”

“I…thought I might give you another chance to try to persuade me why I should. What would it involve?” He looked at Yuuri expectantly.

 _Finally,_ Yuuri thought, feeling weak with relief. Victor hadn’t agreed yet, but there was a chance now, and he was going to take it. “It’s not invasive. Well, not physically. I’d look into your eyes and enter your mind.” Victor’s eyes widened and a look of alarm crossed his face. “I’d _have_ to,” he explained. “I…you’d have to let me in so I could look around, so to speak. To try to get an idea of what’s been done to you and how it can be undone. Willow told me what she did, but…she’s never tried to undo it herself before.” It struck him that none of this was likely to sound particularly appealing.

“She’s the one who did this to me? With…with ESP?”

Yuuri nodded. “That’s why they made her go to the Institute – because they thought she’d be useful to them. She’s the one who’s been giving you tranquilizer injections, so she could check and see if your memory was still gone, without you knowing. That’s the real cause of your dizzy spells.” He saw a shadow of anger in Victor’s expression at the revelation. “But what I need to do won’t cause any harm,” he added quickly.

“Of course not. I just need to give you access to the deepest parts of me, is that all? That’s what you’re saying?” Victor rested his chin in a hand and raised his eyebrows, but the attempted look of mock outrage didn’t fool Yuuri; he could sense his fear.

“I suppose maybe I am,” he said gently. “But if it worked, you’d recall everything you’ve forgotten. Isn’t that worth letting me try?”

Victor stared. “And I can trust you because…?”

Yuuri thought for a moment. “You just said yourself. You loved…love me.”

“I don’t know that,” Victor whispered. “I don’t know what happened between us. And there’s not much evidence to back up what you’ve been telling me. Even my own roommate isn’t who he said he was.” He paused, then added, “Help me understand, Yuuri.”

Yuuri considered what to say, resting his thumb against his chin and passing his fingers over his lips. Then he noticed the glint of silver again. Of course – the ring. He held his hand up to show Victor. “You have one of these. I gave it to you. We exchanged them, not that long ago. Have you taken it off to look at it?”

Victor glanced down and pulled off his own to examine it. “I have.” He traced a finger around the inside. “It seemed to have suddenly appeared, so I knew I must’ve gotten it sometime in the past two years. I wondered if the snowflake patterns meant anything. There aren’t any words engraved on it.”

“No, there aren’t.” Yuuri stood, removed his ring, and covered the space between them. Then he bent over and took Victor’s ring, putting them together, one on top of the other, so that the two halves of the large snowflake made a whole. He placed them both in Victor’s palm. Victor stared at them, his lips parted; then he looked up with wondering eyes, and Yuuri suddenly got the feeling that if he wanted to, Victor would let him kiss him. But it felt wrong under the circumstances; and he quietly took his ring back and slipped it on his finger.

“I…saw them in an antique shop when we were visiting, and thought they were nice,” he explained. “They’re only stainless steel, but…well, it’s what they mean that matters.”

Victor closed his fingers over his ring in his palm and shut his eyes for a moment, then looked at Yuuri in confusion. “I knew this ring was special somehow,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “I…I just knew.” He took a breath and said more firmly, “Yuuri, when I look at you…it’s the same kind of knowing. Like…there are feelings there, but my mind can’t make any sense of them.”

Yuuri felt his pulse quicken, and he listened with joy beginning to bubble in his chest.

“I feel like I’d trust you with my life,” Victor added quietly. “Do you know how strange that is? How frightening? I don’t even know who you are…but I think my heart does.”

The vulnerability in Victor’s eyes was plain to see. And…yes, and love. A love he couldn’t understand but felt nevertheless. For a man his mind had tricked him into believing he’d only met a few days ago. Yuuri felt a tremor pass through him, and tears pricked his eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a more moving display of Victor’s feelings for him than this. There were times when he still wondered why someone like Victor would want someone like him. But he would never again doubt that it was so.

“Please let me try,” he said softly. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Victor sat in thought, turning the ring in circles with his fingertips. Then he put it back on and looked at Yuuri. “What do you want me to do?”

Yuuri didn’t know how long this would take, or how they would be most comfortable. Maybe it would involve trial and error, over more than one session. He considered for a moment, then said, “If you could, um, sit on one of the beds – lean against the wall, put some pillows behind you, make yourself comfortable…”

Victor raised an eyebrow, then got onto the bed next to him and did as he’d asked. Yuuri came over and, after another pause, decided to try kneeling, his shins next to Victor’s thighs. It felt like it would be the most natural thing in the world to slip his arms around Victor’s shoulders and lean in for a kiss, and the thought seemed to occur to Victor too, who was looking at him with a mixture of uncertainty, curiosity, and possibly desire.

Yuuri placed his hand over Victor’s heart, and Victor took a small, quick breath. “This seems to help,” Yuuri said, using an apologetic tone, though the simple touch had sent a warm ripple through him. “But if it bothers you – ”

“No,” Victor mumbled, his eyes still fixed on Yuuri’s. “No…it’s fine.”

Holding his gaze, Yuuri concentrated, trying to ease the tension he felt, which seemed to stem from his worries about whether this would actually work, his physical proximity to Victor, and the deeper connection he was initiating. Now wasn’t the time to acknowledge the desire that was beginning to course through his own veins. The body could be so awkward and traitorous at times, he thought with a dart of annoyance. _Concentrate._ Willow seemed to prefer to have her subject tranquilized if she could; maybe it made them more docile or receptive. But Yuuri had no intention of forcing his way into anything. He felt himself gradually sinking into Victor’s mind. Victor initially put up some resistance to the intrusion, but then seemed to decide it was safe, and relaxed. It was…oh god, Yuuri thought, it was a lot like having sex with him. He was going to be distracted to the point where he couldn’t do this at all if he kept thinking about that. His cheeks were flaming again – when was the last time he’d blushed so much?

 _[Such thoughts,]_ Victor sent.

Yuuri swallowed in a dry throat. _[It’s just very intimate.]_

There was a pause. Then, _[Yes. It is.]_

He waited to see if Victor raised any objections or seemed uncomfortable, but he remained open and receptive. _You’re beautiful,_ Yuuri thought with wonder. As he went deeper, searching for the memories that had been walled off from Victor’s consciousness, images began to form in his mind, gradually coming into sharper focus. He found himself standing in the countryside. There were rolling green hills covered with patches of trees, and a blue sky with cottony white clouds. Nearby was…a castle? Made of gray stone. Though on closer inspection, it seemed to be a single crenelated turret with a window at the top. And it was surrounded by a mass of briars. Big thick tangled woody vines with thorns.

 _What the hell._ Yuuri felt like he’d stepped into the pages of a fairy-tale book. Did that mean there were ogres or giants or a witch lurking nearby? Anything could be happening here, he thought with trepidation. Then he realized his right hand was clasped around something heavy. He raised it and discovered that he was wearing thick leather gloves and holding a sword. It gleamed in the sunlight. _Shit. I might really have to fight monsters here or something._ He scanned the immediate area but saw nothing that looked threatening. Taking a moment to examine the rest of his attire, he observed that he was dressed like some kind of prince, or maybe Robin Hood. A forest-green tunic. Brown pants. Heavy boots. A brown hat; he touched it and tipped the brim. A leather belt with a scabbard. Underneath the tunic was a gold-colored long-sleeved shirt. _I’m ready to perform at a Renaissance fair,_ he thought with a touch of amusement. Then he remembered the monsters.

But there was still no sign of anyone here but him, and he wondered where Victor was, if he’d been included in this scenario. Maybe, as its creator, he was simply sitting back and watching. Yuuri made a few practice slashes with the sword. He’d never picked one up before and it felt strange. _Well, swords cut, don’t they? Maybe, instead of fighting something with it, I’m supposed to use it to get through these briars and enter the turret._

He circled the area to double-check there wasn’t already a passage through that he hadn’t seen, but he couldn’t find anything. There seemed to be nothing else for it, then. He grasped the sword hilt with both hands and swung – and the metal glanced off the wood with a thud that reverberated up both his arms. Yuuri swore and ran a finger along the edge of the metal. It felt as dull as a butter knife. What use was that? He looked up at the turret. Somehow he had to get in there.

He stood with the sword at his side and thought. This seemed to be a kind of dream world, deep within Victor’s psyche, which contained the fears that kept his memories separate from his conscious mind, as Willow had explained. Apart from a few psychology classes and some self-help books, Yuuri hadn’t imbued a great deal of knowledge about such things. He would have to make some guesses and hope his instincts guided him well. Like dreams, he supposed the prevailing paradigm here would be symbolism and metaphor. So the imprisonment of Victor’s memories was being represented as a…a scene from _Sleeping Beauty_ , from the look of it. The only obstacle seemed to be the briars. They would prick you and make you bleed. Just like worries and fears. So you would naturally want to shy away and avoid them.

 _Let’s confront them instead,_ Yuuri decided. _Maybe we can take some of the sting away._

He gazed at the dark gnarled woody vines immediately in front of him, and received a flash of understanding. Victor was afraid the two of them would have to keep running forever. Always pursued, never able to settle anywhere for long, unable to live the lives they wanted to. Eventually becoming destitute. He feared the very Institute that he used to think of warmly as his and Korovin’s project for making breakthroughs in the treatment of psychosis. Yuuri could see it briefly in Victor’s mind as a strong towering edifice, suddenly rocked by a violent earthquake and collapsing to rubble. But it wasn’t just the Institute itself; it was the people as well – Korovin and all the rest. Victor was still surprised at how badly he’d misjudged them; been duped by them. How could he trust himself, ever again, to discern people’s true motives?

 _You did all right with Chris and me, eventually,_ Yuuri thought. _You just made a mistake, Victor. It happens._ Though he should talk. He knew how hard he tended to be on himself when he messed up.

These briars were tall, thick, bristling with thorns the size of cleats. Was he supposed to…chop them down? Not with this sword, he couldn’t. He didn’t appear to have anything else to use. Anyway, he didn’t have the power to actually _remove_ Victor’s fears. These were ones he shared himself. Always running. He didn’t know how to change that. Maybe – he looked again at his gloved hands – he was supposed to pull the briars apart through sheer strength, even though his clothes and skin would soon be in tatters.

 _Jesus,_ he thought, flinching as he imagined the pain and mess. Who needed monsters when you were facing something like this.

But if that was what it took…?

With a shaking hand, he reached up…but just before he touched the briars, they parted of their own accord, making a space of a few meters in depth for him to enter. He did so tentatively, with a quick breath of relief.    

Still unsure of the rules here, he reached his hand in front of him again, but nothing unusual happened; his gloved fingers rested on the briars. Maybe he had to examine these too, then. He looked at the woody tangle, and into the shadowed spaces underneath where the sun would never be able to shine…and it came to him that Victor was afraid of Crow. Yuuri’s heart skipped a beat. _So am I. Believe me, I can relate._ Unsure of what else, if anything, he needed to do, he held his hand out – and the next patch of briars drew back with a creak and a groan of stiff wood bending, to let him pass.

The next of Victor’s fears was also one that Yuuri was very familiar with. He missed his career, but questioned whether he’d actually achieved anything with it. All those unnecessary operations. Yuuri felt strongly enough about this that he tried to argue with it, though he didn’t know whether Victor could receive what he sent from this place.

_[I’m sure you helped people with genuine psychosis.]_

_[It’s not your fault that you didn’t know you were blocking ESP, too.]_

_[You meant well. You never intended to hurt anyone.]_

_[They took advantage of you at the Institute.]_

_[You can undo what you did – you’ve already invented tech to use.]_

But they’d discussed these things before. It didn’t have any effect on the briars now. He wondered what it might feel like to have worked so hard for so long, and be proud of what you’d done, only to suddenly be forced to confront the possibility that it had all been for nothing. That you’d done the very opposite of what you’d intended to do, when you thought you’d been helping people. Your life had been dedicated to it…and you’d been used and lied to. Yuuri had never really explored it before like this, probably for the same reason he didn’t want to have to touch the briars. It pricked and bled. How much worse must it have felt for Victor? His heart ached for him. No wonder he’d fallen into depression.

_Vitenka…it must be so hard to carry all this on your shoulders. But I promise I’ll help you with it, as much as I can._

He reached his hand toward the briars, and they parted.

That was it, then. As if Victor’s unconscious was telling him he didn’t have to try to fix it or make it go away…just understand. Yuuri was surprised by the simple power of it. He wondered briefly what his own psyche would create with all the fears it had to draw on, and imagined a gigantic forest of man-eating briars with thorns like nails, populated with every fairy-tale monster imaginable, plus spiders and scorpions and piranhas the size of houses. _Jesus,_ he thought with a mental shudder.

He stepped forward, and found that he was standing roughly in the middle of the briar patch. It was too high for him to see the ground beyond it, but he could judge how near he was getting to the turret. When he looked ahead of him, he gave a start when he discovered the fears here were about _him_ , getting hurt and dying. Shot by a laser gun. Unable to get out of the portal, or killed inside of it – this part of Victor obviously remembered what had happened. Being captured by the Institute, as he himself had been. Yuuri was already acquainted with these feelings, in the sense that he had them about Victor. So strongly that they could set off anxiety attacks. Though he hadn’t realized how deep Victor’s own fears were. He was good at hiding them, it seemed.

The briars allowed him to move forward again. But they were like a mass of steel cables here, growing out of control – dense, dark, and strong, looming over him, blocking out the sunlight. They cast shadows like barbed wire over the moist earth on which he stood. Victor’s fear was in the very air here, hanging thick and heavy. What could be so terrible? Yuuri wondered. He hesitated before holding his hand out this time, but told himself he needed to do this.

“Oh…” he said as the understanding came to him. “Oh.”

Victor was afraid that Yuuri would leave him again.

But…why? They’d talked about this, too. Yuuri had promised him. Surely Victor knew how much he loved him and wanted to be with him…didn’t he? And after everything they’d been through…even exchanging the rings. But – again, _oh_. Victor had liked that, but he’d found it confusing, too, because there had been no discussion of what it had _meant_ , apart from love. And Yuuri, hesitant to force Victor to choose whether or not to make a commitment, as he saw it, had deliberately not initiated one. Besides, he’d always believed that people could stay together without the need for a formal ceremony or declaration. He’d never asked for Victor’s views on the subject, though, and it seemed his were rather different.

_I should’ve realized. Maybe I was dodging some fears of my own._

It wasn’t just that the fear itself existed, however, but the magnitude of it. Victor knew he’d hurt Yuuri, over and over, while he’d been depressed at the Elkhorn Project; and it didn’t seem to make any difference to him that it had been triggered by an attack from Crow. He’d been dismayed by that, and by his seeming inability to pull himself out of it, for Yuuri’s sake as well as his own. But going back…much further back…there were shades here from the death of his mother, a beloved sister who’d been unreachable in her illness and then institutionalized, and a father who’d been emotionally and physically unavailable. Yuuri’s heart was in his throat as he saw a vision of a fair boy, with intelligent blue eyes and blond hair in a ponytail, sitting in a corner of a dusty workshop crammed with pieces of metal and electronics, a set of tools spread neatly on the empty bench beside him as he busied his mind for hours, alone, tinkering and pulling ideas and dreams out of the ether.

Everyone left him in the end. That was what he thought.

More than one romantic partner had, as well. Yuuri avoided looking into it more closely; he didn’t want to invade Victor’s privacy. Should they have talked about past lovers? he wondered. In his case there’d been nothing to say, but he’d known Victor had been with other people. Were you supposed to ask, if the other person didn’t volunteer the information? If so, when?

He saw now that Victor’s heart had cracked time after time; and while he always put it back together, there were imperfectly mended seams running through it like ancient clear ice that bore the scars of partial melting and refreezing.

 _Oh, Victor. I never realized._         

When Yuuri had run away after their confrontation outside the neuroscience building, it had cracked again, deeply. Yuuri was horrified at the pain he’d caused. And yet Victor had never given up hope of finding him. _Had_ found him, eventually. Had been there to support him, despite these fears he’d been harboring. And they’d gone on to share many happy moments together.

_Victor, you’re amazing. I’m not going to forget what you’ve shown me here, and I’m sorry for the part I’ve had in causing it._

The briars parted in front of him – to reveal a short corridor leading into a grassy sunlit clearing in which the turret stood. A smile flickered across Yuuri’s face, and he strode forward and up to a large arched wooden door with an ancient-looking iron latch. When he pressed it down, however, it wouldn’t budge. There was no keyhole, and no other obvious means of entry.

 _Am I supposed to say, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair?”_ he thought, looking up at the window. No…that didn’t feel right, somehow. But what should he do, then? Wait…was that a doorbell in the wall next to the door? A small white button in an ornate silver filigree setting. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Well, maybe because he hadn’t been looking for it. He was fairly certain they hadn’t had doorbells in the Middle Ages.

He pressed it, wondering what to expect. His curiosity was soon satisfied when there was a chime and the voice of an English butler said, “Good afternoon, sir. How may I be of service?”

Yuuri vaguely recalled that Victor had told him once about the Friday at Columbia University sounding something like this. After all the time he’d worked here, it would no doubt be very familiar to him. “I’d like to come in, please,” Yuuri said.

“I’m afraid I can’t admit you as you are, sir.”

“What?”

“That’s the _bare_ state of affairs.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow and stepped back. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe you’re being entirely _open_ about the situation.”

A bemused laugh escaped him. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve already _exposed_ the truth of the matter to you, sir, if you’d care to listen.”

 _Fucking hell._ Yuuri shook his head and stuck the tip of his otherwise useless sword into the crack between the door and the wall and tried to use it as a lever. The door wouldn’t budge, and he was in danger of bending the sword out of shape or snapping it. He finally gave up and sheathed it, staring up at the window. “Is anyone in there?” he called. “Can you hear me?” But he was met with nothing but silence, and he caught no movement.

“Have you _uncovered_ the answer yet, sir?”

“Why do you keep talking like that?”

“Is my accent so _stark_ , sir?”

Yuuri stared at the doorbell, as if this bizarre personality was somehow embodied within it. “I…am I supposed to…take my clothes off?” he whispered, hardly believing he’d just said this.

“If you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

Yuuri guffawed. _Yes I would mind, actually, but you’re not giving me a choice, are you?_ Only in Victor’s psyche would this be a condition of getting to see someone. “Fine. OK.” He reached down to unbuckle his belt, but it seemed to be oddly stuck. His boots and gloves also felt like they were superglued to him. God, he hated surrealism. He preferred things he could make sense of with his logical mind. How could he have any hope of doing that here?

Then he reminded himself that he’d been traveling the landscape of ESP for most of his life. While his day-to-day job had called on his rational self, it was an entirely different side of him that sensed and intuited through the glimpses and impulses, the mists and fogs that tended to characterize the ether. If that wasn’t surreal, what was? So what was stopping him from feeling this out now? Nothing but sheer frustration, he decided. He’d never liked Fridays in the first place, and this one was pissing him off. But it wasn’t real, he reminded himself. It was just here to give him information. And the information it had given him was that he needed to be bare. Exposed.

What did that mean in dreams? He’d had too many of the type where he’d walk into a lecture theater that had inexplicably gained an audience of about a hundred people, rather than the small group he normally taught; and, too late, he’d suddenly realize that he’d forgotten to put any clothes on. Sometimes, just to make it worse, he would be a younger overweight version of himself. _That_ , no doubt, represented his fear of making himself vulnerable to people who would laugh at or ridicule him. But here…? Maybe it meant making himself vulnerable in a different way, because he knew Victor would do none of those things. And he’d thought Victor was actually the vulnerable one at the moment, opening himself to Yuuri’s mind, sharing his deepest fears.

Maybe…he himself needed to do the same thing? Then they’d be on equal footing. Well, he could try. What was he afraid of – ? Jesus, where to begin…

Suddenly a cloud passed over the sun, the warm glow of the day dropping into flat gray. A cold wind gusted, and the briars that surrounded the turret seemed to grow higher; more menacing. None of this was good, Yuuri thought, waiting a moment to see if anything more threatening occurred and feeling relieved when it didn’t. Obviously he’d been on the wrong track.

“If you _will_ do things like that, sir, then I regret to inform you that the master is not at home to you.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow at the doorbell. He knew an insult when he heard it, no matter how politely it was phrased. Instead of trying to formulate a good reply, he forced himself to concentrate again. So he wasn’t supposed to be baring his fears. That made sense; surely it would just pull them both down while Victor was trying to deal with his own. So…what part of himself _should_ he be revealing? Well, he knew what he’d _like_ to share, of course. Especially with a Victor who’d forgotten.

His love. It was like a mirrorball, with all its facets. His gratitude for the support Victor had given him from the start – through the anxiety…when he thought Yuuri might be psychotic…when Yuuri had told him about his problems with food. Knowing he was accepted and loved for who he was, for the first time in his life. The way Victor had searched for him and found him, despite all the terrible things Yuuri had accused him of; despite the fact that he’d pulled a stun gun on him and run away. The new kind of love that had grown between them as they’d made contact through ESP. Fighting off Crow together. The joy, excitement, and satisfaction of so many other things they’d done. Sharing their lives. Sex. Exploring the ESP; developing it and discovering new ways to use it. But above all, Victor himself – loveable simply for who he was. The most beautiful person Yuuri had ever known, inside and out.

“Victor, I’m so glad I met you. I love you so much it hurts sometimes. I don’t want to be without you. Please…come back to me.”                  

The wooden door in front of him swung open. Yuuri felt a warm breeze ghost across his skin and looked down to see that all his clothes had disappeared – his belt, his hat, any underwear he might have been wearing; every scrap. A momentary wave of panic welled up inside of him. He was exposed now, literally and figuratively. But…well, who else was here apart from Victor? And what did he have to be ashamed of, anyway? Nothing. Nothing at all.

He entered the turret, to discover that he was in a stone-flagged room with a wide staircase covered in plush red carpeting that wound its way around the wall and out of sight. There were no windows, but somehow the turret was bright inside, as if illuminated by the afternoon sun. Yuuri couldn’t see anything here to do other than follow the stairway, and the Friday seemed to have fallen silent. Well, he wasn’t going to complain. He made his way up, his toes sinking into the soft rich fibers underneath them. There was another wooden door at the top. He wondered if he was going to have to do something else, pass some new test, before he could go inside; but this time when he touched the lever of the old metal hasp, it depressed with a clink, and he pushed the door open.

In front of him was a bedroom covered in more of the luxurious red carpeting. Golden beams of sunlight streamed in through the window Yuuri had seen from outside. Vivid tapestries showing scenes of knights fighting and medieval nobles hunting lined the walls. The furniture in the room was of carved gilded wood – chairs, a table, even a chaise longue. And against the far wall, a canopied four-poster bed hung with white diaphanous curtains that fluttered softly in the draft from the window. Yuuri approached, just able to discern the outline of a form lying within.

When he was next to the bed, he pulled the curtain aside – and was struck breathless by what he saw. Victor was lying nude on top of the covers, the diffuse light through the curtains setting his skin aglow, defining the sculpted planes and muscles of his body. His eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm, and his hair…good god, he had long hair. Longer than that of the boy Yuuri had seen in the workshop. A pale waterfall artfully draped around his shoulders and spilling onto the sheets. If he stood, it would hang almost down to his waist. He looked…utterly ethereal. Yuuri wanted to paint his picture. Write a poem. Sing a song. A vision like this deserved to be appreciated a hundred different ways.

 _I’m not here just to stand and stare,_ he told himself, though he felt mesmerized, and it was an effort to pull his gaze away. As he shifted his bare feet on the carpet, he became mindful again of his own lack of clothing, and he felt a flash of embarrassment. There was no way he could compare to what was in front of him. No one could. But…that wasn’t important right now. There were things he still needed to do.

He moved further forward, toward the head of the bed. Presumably, he was supposed to do what the prince did in the fairy tale. He reminded himself that this was Victor, not some work of art he wasn’t supposed to touch. He _wanted_ to touch. He _would_ touch. Cupping his warm cheek, Yuuri said, “Victor…All these things you’ve shown me that you’re afraid of. Those fears don’t have to conquer you, no matter how strong they are. I…I’ve got some experience there, and I know. Remember that time we saw each other, like we were two stars?” He was stroking Victor’s cheek gently now, and he felt his heart going into his words. “No fear could touch us then, could it?” He smiled. “I know that when you come back, you’ll still have fears. I do, myself. Well, you know that. But we’ll face them together. My Velvet. My Vitenka. I promise.” Then he bent down and pressed a kiss to Victor’s lips.      

It was just a touch, though a lingering one. And Yuuri found he was looking into a pair of placid blue eyes.


	70. Chapter 70

They remained in his mind like an after-image, while the rest of his surroundings faded away. Sunlight segued into the artificial lights in the hotel room. The stillness was broken by vehicles passing on the street outside, and the rumble of the electric heater. No longer was he bending over the pale form that had been waking. He was kneeling on a firm and decidedly less luxurious modern bed, with his hand over Victor’s heart. Their gazes continued to meet. The same eyes Yuuri had been looking into. But now they were wide and wondering.

“Did you see – ” Yuuri began.

“I saw,” Victor confirmed in a soft wavering voice. “You rescued me.”

“But you were asleep in the tower.”

“I still saw. You were wonderful.” He reached a hand out to touch Yuuri’s cheek, and Yuuri flinched, needing to know, needing the answer. Then Victor gave it. “I remember, Yuuri.”

Yuuri let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Tears sprang into his eyes.

“Everything,” Victor continued quietly, with a small smile, as if the idea was both strange and amazing. “Everything I forgot.” He stroked Yuuri’s cheek gently and swallowed, his own eyes brightening with unshed tears.

Yuuri whispered his name and leaned forward, caressing his face with both his hands, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was real and it was OK to do this now. They touched foreheads and noses, and lightly nuzzled them. Victor wiped a tear from Yuuri’s cheek even as one trickled down his own. He smiled. “Why are you crying?”

Yuuri let out a shaky laugh. “Why are you smiling while you’re crying?”

“You’re laughing.”

“Because I’m happy. I’m happy you’re back. I thought…I was afraid you’d – ”

“I know,” Victor said, placing a finger across Yuuri’s lips. “But it’s OK now. Thanks to you.” His hands continued to ghost over Yuuri’s face, his hair, his neck, as if he were the most precious thing in the world. “Oh Yuranya,” he finally said in a choked voice as more tears spilled from his eyes, “I love you. I love you.” He kept saying it as if he couldn’t possibly say it enough, punctuating it with kisses to Yuuri’s lips, his wet cheeks, his nose.

Yuuri had ached for this moment. His heart could barely contain itself within the confines of his chest. He sighed _Victor, Vitenka, my Velvet_ as he kissed Victor in return, tasting the salt of his tears on his cheeks, knowing his own were the same. After a while, kisses on lips gradually lasted longer and deepened, roaming hands began to caress, and whispers turned into moans. Yuuri thought how strange it was that they’d both been nude in the vision they’d shared, yet they had so many clothes on now. It was time to put that right, he decided; and Victor enthusiastically complied.

Their sex was beautiful and urgent, a relief and a comfort. When Victor begged him to take him and fill him, Yuuri almost went to pieces then and there. Afterward, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms for a long time. The calm and quiet as he was cocooned in Victor’s warmth, their hearts beating together, always felt to Yuuri like a haven in moments like this; but perhaps moreso tonight, now that Victor had come back to him and remembered. He found Victor’s right hand and entwined their fingers, watching their rings flash in the light. Victor’s eyes followed as a grin played across his lips. They’d hardly spoken since he’d regained his memory. Other things had felt more important to Yuuri at the time. The need to reconnect. To share their joy in Victor’s recovery. To assuage the desire that had built up between them. And sometimes it was good just to _be_ , without thinking at all.  If they spent the rest of their lives as they were now, he would be happy, he decided.

He felt Victor’s breath against his temple as he said, “I really did have long hair, you know. When I was a teenager.”

“It must’ve been beautiful,” Yuuri murmured. “I would’ve loved to be able to run my fingers through it. How come you cut it off?”

Victor was silent for a moment. Then he answered, “I was…going through a rough patch, I guess you could say, and I took it out on myself. I’ll tell you about it sometime.” But right now, apparently, he was intent on nuzzling Yuuri’s hair and holding him tight. Yuuri breathed in the scent of him and lifted his hand to kiss his fingers. He wondered if he ought to say something about the fears that had been embodied in the briars in Victor’s vision. But in a way maybe he already had; gaining an understanding of them seemed to have been the prerequisite for being allowed to pass through. Still, it niggled. He supposed it was bound to bother him that he couldn’t have chopped at the fears with his sword and caused them to disappear; that he would have to continue to watch Victor suffer with them. Well, Yuuri had promised him he wouldn’t have to do it alone.

“Who’s Mikhail?” he asked.

Victor looked at him in surprise. “How do you know about him?”

“In your vision…in the briar patch. There was a bit about…about ex-lovers. I didn’t want to pry, but that name came to me at the time, so…I thought I’d ask.” He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in doing so. “I know it’s usually impossible to get words across in that way through ESP, but maybe because we had such a deep connection…” Victor’s continuing silence didn’t bode well, he mused. “If it’s too personal a question, I’m sorry – ”

“No, Yuuri, no…it’s OK.” Victor considered. “Sometime I’ll tell you more about my past, and the people I’ve been with. It’s no secret. I just…I don’t know; maybe I didn’t want you to feel like you had to compete with any of them. Though there’d _be_ no competition, I promise you.”

 _You know me too well,_ Yuuri thought with a start. “Will you tell me about Mikhail for now? He’s Russian, isn’t he?”

Victor nodded. “I was twenty-one when I moved in with him. I hadn’t been in New York long and I was missing home; that didn’t help. I was too young.” He told Yuuri a little about him and the ballet; about how busy they both had been with their careers, and had drifted apart. “I was hoping I’d do better the next time I moved in with someone,” he concluded, “but I wasn’t in any hurry to try it again.” He kissed Yuuri’s hair and squeezed his hand. “But I’m glad I did with you. I wouldn’t give it up for the world, Yuranya.”

Yuuri felt tears prick at his eyes again and snugged closer, his heart fluttering. After a silence, he asked, “What _did_ you do the past couple of days?”

After a pause, Victor replied, “Like I said, I mostly thought. About everything you and Chris told me. About you – how much I could trust you, why I felt the way I did about you when I didn’t know you.” His voice dropped. “Yuuri, I…I was so scared and confused.”

“I know,” Yuuri said, running a finger down his cheek.

“And I acted like a prick.”

“You were scared and confused. And…magnificent.” Victor gave him a surprised little smile. “You were. Communicating with me using the ESP, shielding like that – hell, even exploding Chris’s laser gun. That wasn’t exactly a helpful thing to do, not that you knew at the time, but…it was wicked flink.” They both laughed. “Especially when you didn’t even remember about the ESP in the first place. You were still just as good at using it. And you trusted what Chris and I told you, enough not to go back to the Institute.”

“I had feelings about that, too…You know how I said I had instinctive ones about you? These were instinctive too, but in a negative way.” He sighed. “When I think about what they did to me – tampering with my memory, sending me here, putting me back to work like that – it makes me livid. If I ever speak to Korovin again, he’ll have a lot to answer for.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing they saw a use for you, though, considering what the alternative might’ve been.”

“I’m glad you got me out of there.” He ran a finger under Yuuri’s chin. “Did you really knock me out and carry me?” When Yuuri nodded, he chuckled. “I wish I could see a video of that. You are _audacious_ , Yuuri Katsuki. And…you were right to do it, even if I was mad at you for it. If you’d come in and tried to persuade me to leave with you, I wouldn’t have given you away, but I wouldn’t have believed you either. And Willow was there, and Crow, and…” He sighed again. “I’m so glad I’m here with you now.”

“Me too.” Yuuri captured his lips in a soft kiss.

“How did you get away?” Victor asked quietly afterward. “What happened in the portal? I was worried – ”

“It was OK. I was fine.”

“I only did that because we were desperate. I didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t have to go in.”

“It’s a good thing I did. There’s a lot to tell you about that…but it can wait for another time, too. I came out across from Willow’s house, here in New York City, and persuaded her to help me get you out of the Institute.”

Victor looked at him incredulously. “The portal took you from California to here?”

“In a roundabout way, yeah.”

“ _Bozhe moi_ …” His eyes lit up. “That’s _amazing_ , Yuuri. The possibilities – ”

Yuuri smiled. “I think there’s a lot for us to research, once we…once we’re in a position to do it.”

Victor kissed near his ear. “We will be, _Zvezda moya._ Wait and see.”

 _I want to believe that,_ Yuuri thought, idly running his fingers along Victor’s arm. _I just don’t know how._     

***

The first thing Victor thought in the morning was, _Yuuri’s next to me. How lovely. I missed him._

The second thing he thought was, _I remember._

The difference there was between his old life when he worked for the Institute, and this new one he had with Yuuri…Slipping into the former again, as he’d been forced to do, only made that clear. Despite the troubles they’d faced, and the ones that were no doubt still ahead…he was grateful beyond words that he’d been reunited with his Zvezda.

When they’d captured him in the woods and taken him god knew where…he wondered if he’d ever see Yuuri again. If his own life was over. But not before Crow made things difficult for him. Underneath his attempted show of bravado, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been more frightened.

But that was all past. His love had been determined to find him and save him. And he had.

_I remember._

How long they’d intended to keep him at the Institute under what had amounted to house arrest, he wasn’t sure. It had felt like he hadn’t been exercising his scientific brain much lately, and how right he’d been; it had been a relief to think about research, and have the time and resources at his disposal. But that was all the good that could be said for it. The way he’d been manipulated into performing the operations again, when it should’ve been the last thing he’d been willing to do… _ublyudoki_.

He’d believed he’d been leading such a full life all those years. Now that he could recall the precious time he’d had with Yuuri, however, it struck him how two-dimensional it had been. Yuuri had brought new colors, feelings, and experiences to his days. A depth and richness he’d never known was possible. How could he ever have thought that the pinnacle of his existence would be his work? Yes, it was important. Yes, he had a passion and a talent for it, and still believed he could achieve a great deal – especially now that they had the ESP to investigate together. But there was so much more than that to be had…and Yuuri had taken his hand and led him there. _Together._ They would work together and live together and love together. Victor never wanted to be parted from him again.    

He lay for some time as the rising sun, dimly filtered through the curtains, slowly and quietly revealed what the shadows of the night had veiled in the room, including the man sleeping peacefully next to him. It was rare that he woke up before Yuuri and got the chance to watch him like this, his long dark lashes brushing his cheeks, unruly hair falling across his forehead. _How could anyone have made me forget him? How could that ever have happened?_

When he’d entered this room the night before, it was because he’d decided he was willing to trust what his heart was telling him, even if his mind continued to draw an utter blank. Maybe Yuuri didn’t know what a struggle that decision had been for him, scientist as he was, trained to favor empirical evidence over instinct. Or maybe he did. They both had that training, and had relied on it for years. Though Yuuri was more used to balancing it with his ESP. That was something he might be able to teach Victor about…though he was learning. When he’d looked into those warm brown eyes last night, he’d seen someone who was in touch with the deepest part of him. He’d been certain of it – and yet, this was someone he _didn’t even know._ Dr. Yuuri Katsuki had kidnapped him from the Institute. Told him that everything he’d believed in had been a lie. Kept insisting he didn’t understand; didn’t know what was best for himself. Had been eyeing a stun gun on the desk as if considering whether to use it on him. And yet, none of it mattered. Because when Victor had created the opportunity to get away and reflect on it all, and consider how he felt…it was that one long, strong note singing out of his heart, always. _I love him._

He’d decided it gave him license to indulge in a little flirtation, to see where that led. Poor Yuuri; those beautiful burning cheeks. And yet he’d never been anything other than sweet and kind in return. When he’d said he needed to look into the furthest reaches of Victor’s mind, there was only ever one answer that he was going to give, even if he’d hesitated at first. Victor needed his memories back. To understand what had happened to him; to recall important information he’d forgotten. But, above all, to bring this extraordinary man back into his life where he clearly belonged. They’d shared joys and sorrows, passions and disappointments and triumphs – this he knew. And he was determined to possess the _details_ of that knowing once more. That he could trust Yuuri to do his best to help him had never been in doubt. He’d allowed him in, and watched as if from a distance while his unconscious created some fairy-tale scenario for him to negotiate.

It seemed a shame to have to burden Yuuri with all those fears. But he’d asked Yuuri to do the same with him before, so maybe it wasn’t so bad giving him the chance to reciprocate. He’d been as metaphorically exposed throughout that vision as Yuuri had been when he’d entered the tower and given him the wake-up kiss. The thought almost made Victor laugh aloud. He wanted to apologize for that. But it hadn’t been a conscious decision. Nor had the English Friday. Yuuri had been such a hero to go along with it all. His own very handsome, clever and patient Prince Charming.

They’d even had their own real-life castle for a while, at the Elkhorn Project. It wasn’t anything big or fancy, but it had been home. And it had laid to rest one fear, at least, that had not been present for Yuuri to encounter in the briar patch – that he’d make a mess again of living with someone. Of course, there was no going back now…they’d lost the house and everything in it. He let that sink in for a moment. It stung, and he didn’t feel like examining just how far the depth of that pain, tinged with anger, ran right now. Besides, he’d already given up his possessions in two other apartments for lost as well. It was why he and Yuuri had agreed to carry their most important items with them in their backpacks.

As he listened to Yuuri’s quiet, even breathing, his gaze flitted to his own backpack at the side of the bed. The red stood out against the neutral colors of the coverlet and the blue of the carpet in the watery light. When they’d told him at the Institute that he’d been injured and was missing a chunk of his memory, and so many things seemed new and strange, one of them had been this backpack he couldn’t recall ever having seen before; and so he’d investigated its contents thoroughly. Now that he had a clear recollection of what should have been in there, he knew that someone had had a good look and tinker with everything inside.

_I hope it gave you some entertainment for a while._

They’d taken the ultrasonic device. Had they worked out what it did? Thank god he’d had the sense to make a second one and give it to Yuuri; the possibility of eventualities such as his own being stolen or destroyed had never been long absent from his mind. His cash had disappeared, of course – but there were funds in his bank account; he wondered who’d been responsible for that. Luckily he’d thought to take more money out, once he’d left Yuuri and Chris in the hotel, before he’d been denied access. Someone had hacked into his tablets, though it must’ve taken them a while. His research notes were all still there – barring the ones from the study he’d been conducting with Yuuri – including some from the time he’d forgotten, which had initially made for fascinating reading. But the personal ones he’d made in those fevered days when he’d first developed ESP – that had felt at times like a lifeline anchoring him to everything left that was real – those were all gone, and he was sure the loss would continue to ache for some time. Nor were there any recent photos or messages; and he knew Yuuri’s contact number had been deleted because he’d looked for it. His aircam had been completely erased, which smarted too; because between that and the tablets and the items in their house, he had no recent photos at all. They’d have to make more happy memories and take photos of those, then.

Someone had even removed the bottle of lube he always kept zipped in an interior pocket. How petty. Well, he wished whoever it was many happy sessions with their partner or partners, and tried to mean it sincerely. At least Yuuri had some in his backpack, though of course there were many pleasures to be had without it, and it wasn’t difficult to get from a store. He swept his eyes over his _solnyshko_ , nude under the tousled white sheet draped over him from the waist down, and felt a pulse of desire. Yuuri had a libido to rival his own; that had become wonderfully apparent as they’d spent more time together in California, and he’d gradually lost his inhibitions and come to trust Victor with that seemingly very private, vulnerable side of himself. And what a gorgeous pearl Victor had discovered inside the oyster. He loved gazing at it…though maybe he loved the shell opening to let him in even more. He wondered if Yuuri might be amenable to it now, if he approached gently…     

He wasn’t wrong, and no gentle approach was required; though first thing in the morning, Yuuri often liked it when Victor did most of the work while he floated into the world of the waking, content to be pleasured and receptive. That wasn’t to say he didn’t reciprocate, though it was probably a big ask for him to do anything very vigorous before, say, nine a.m. It was simply a different side of him, and one Victor loved as much as the others. Afterward, he invited Yuuri to shower first while he lounged in bed like a purring cat, savoring their mingled heat and scent on the sheets, the tingles in his body fading to warm ripples of contentment, and the joy that his memory was back and they were together again. What they would do next remained to be seen…but they could worry about that later.

When Yuuri emerged from the bathroom with a towel tied around his waist, Victor expressed his deliberate appreciation of the view, then took his time basking under the hot water himself until the little room was full of steam. Noises reached his ears from the main room while he combed his hair. It sounded like Chris had decided to visit.

Chris the CIA agent. Victor could still hardly believe it. He’d been hoping this mystery would clear up, too, once he regained his memory, but of course he knew now that they hadn’t been in touch for months, and Chris had certainly never given him any indication of his alternative career. Though maybe he’d been a little harsh in his criticisms when he’d called him on his tablet the other day. He’d accused Chris of simply taking on another acting job, this time with him, in the role of his roommate and friend, a laid-back bohemian sometime-thespian. Was he still acting even now? Pretending to Yuuri that he was someone trustworthy? “What’s the truth, Chris?” he’d said, feeling like he’d been slapped in the face, and not for the first time. “How will I ever know again that it’s coming out of your mouth?” Yes, he really had been rather angry. And Chris had simply taken it, for the most part, agreeing that he’d felt bad about the deception himself, and hoped he could make it up to him.

Well, maybe it was time to have a word with him. Victor hadn’t brought any clothes into the bathroom, and was used to walking around nude, especially when he was drying off from a bath or shower. Occasionally he would catch Yuuri staring, which made it even more enjoyable. Chris was used to it, too, though Victor had never done it with any sexual overtones at their apartment; at least not after early on, when they’d agreed they weren’t going to have that kind of relationship. With the two of them in there now, it was probably a good idea to cover up with a towel, at least. He tied one around his waist and opened the door, to find Chris perched on the desk and Yuuri sitting in the chair near him, almost identical to how they had all been the last time they’d been together here, though Chris was wearing normal clothes rather than secret-agent black. Yuuri was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he’d made the bed they’d slept in, the one nearest the desk.

“Morning,” Victor said to Chris as he strode across the room.

“Hey, Victor. Yuuri says you’ve got your memory back.”

“He’s right. But I still don’t know what to call you. Have you got a special code name or something? Black Hawk? Eagle Eyes? Tiger Balls?” After holding Chris’s bemused gaze, he let the towel fall off and rummaged for some clothes in his backpack. There weren’t any clean ones. He put on the ones he’d worn the day before, deciding he’d have to buy some more. Then he realized he’d already allowed himself to fall into a bit of a snit, and didn’t like what it was doing to him.

“Tiger Balls?” Chris echoed, then let out a little laugh. “That’s pretty good. I wish. But no, I’m just Chris.”

“Are you?” Victor said, turning his head briefly as he sat on the bed and pulled his shirt on. “Would that be my friendly roommate, or the agent who’s been spying on me for years?” It was out before he could help it. Well, he had to admit he was still angry. Yuuri was silently watching and taking it all in.

“Both, I guess,” Chris mumbled. “Look, Victor, give me a chance to explain. That’s all I’m asking.”

He made a show of considering it, then turned around on the bed and looked at him. “Go on, then. This should be interesting. But tell me first – is there a chip in your head? And if so – ”

“I’ve been through all this with Yuuri.”

“Well now you can go through it all with me.”

“Chris…” Yuuri said in a quiet voice, seemingly unsure of what to say for the best, “…he doesn’t know any of it yet. I haven’t had a chance to tell him. Maybe it’d be better coming from you anyway.”

“Any of what?” Victor said, feeling a prickle of alarm.

Chris held his hands up. “He just means all the stuff we talked about when we were getting you from the Institute to here. Trying to make sure we could trust each other.”

“Do _you_ trust him?” Victor said to Yuuri, regretting too late the fact that he’d put him on the spot. Chris’s lies really had gotten to him, like a splinter digging under a fingernail, he realized.

Yuuri looked at Chris, then Victor, and nodded. “But maybe you should listen to what he has to say, and decide for yourself.”

So Victor listened. Chris showed him the gadget attached to his lapel that he said blocked chip transmissions and security cameras. Explained about his part-time spying job, and how he’d been asked to keep an eye on him, without having been told what Victor did for the Institute. And how he thought that when Victor went to Boston, other agents had probably begun to tail him, to try to find out why, and what he was up to there. “Like that Adam jack who tried to rope you for a steer at the bar – highly suspicious, if you ask me.”

Yuuri raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “I remember that conversation I had with you,” Victor said to Chris. He thought back. “You kept asking me questions about him. And then you said you’ve got to be careful who you trust in this day and age.” He gave him a pointed look. To Yuuri he added, “Adam’s one of the agents who’s been…well, you know. We’ve seen him several times. He did the world’s worst impression of a gay man who was attracted to me.” Yuuri smirked, and Victor turned back to Chris. “You could’ve given him some coaching, I think. He needed it.”

“I’m being genuine with you now, Victor. Honest to god.”

Victor bit back another sarcastic retort, and instead shifted his gaze to Yuuri, who looked uncomfortable. He had obviously been at pains not appear to take sides or antagonize anyone. And he’d said he trusted Chris. Maybe that was good enough, then. Victor had no desire to make things more difficult than they already were.

“This explains why I always thought you were a bit of a busybody and a gossip,” he said with a sigh, but then he smiled and shook his head. “You were doing your job.”

Chris shrugged. “Maybe it’s an ideal job for someone who’s already a busybody and a gossip. You wouldn’t be the first who’s said so.”

“I hope you told them how handsome and brilliant I am. That could’ve been everything your reports needed to say. ‘No change. Still handsome and brilliant.’ ”

“If I didn’t know you like I do, I would’ve said your ego needed knocking down a few pegs. But…you’re one of the nicest jacks I’ve ever met. I really am sorry.”

Victor just sat and looked at him silently, but his expression had softened a little, as well as his heart, he thought. “I’d like to hear more,” he said eventually. “But over breakfast. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Toast and coffee. If you’re having something, I’ll join you.”

They placed an order with the Friday, and while they waited for the drone to arrive with the food, Yuuri and Chris told Victor in more detail about how they’d met and what they’d said and done while he’d been unconscious. It made his skin creep to imagine himself being carried around and deposited like that – though it was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Yuuri was the one who had done most of it – and it appeared he’d missed out on a lot. Chris had been mightily impressed by Yuuri’s ESP display, it seemed. Victor was curious about what he’d make of it if he saw him phase-shifting himself or opening a portal, but quickly decided it would only amount to showing off, and there was no need. He wondered again what it had looked like when Yuuri had put the agents shooting at them out of commission and carried him out of the Institute. There was something kind of sexy about that, he thought.

Yuuri let the drone in through the window when it arrived. It was a large silver-colored one with separate warm and cool compartments for bacon and eggs, yogurt and fruit, and so on. There was a pot of freshly brewed coffee in it, too. They set the trays and mugs out on the desk, and Yuuri sent the empty drone away, going over to make a cup of chamomile tea with the kettle in the room while Victor pulled the easy chair up to the desk.

“Chris, you said something in the alleyway that I meant to ask you about,” Yuuri said, sitting down with his tea and putting some food on a plate for himself. “About how you’d turned rogue. What does that mean, exactly?”

Chris had a bowl of oatmeal in front of him into which he’d stirred some strawberry jam, and was thoughtfully sipping a mug of coffee. “Well, I was just trying to sound flink, I guess. I was thinking a few things when I said it. First of all, that I’m not supposed to be telling anybody about my assignment with Victor. Second, that while I’ve been doing the espionage stuff, I’ve seen what a big surveillance operation the government really runs, and you know? It bothers me. There’s a lot more going on than most people realize.”

“They listen over the chip,” Yuuri said matter-of-factly as he ate.

“We talked about that when I got to MIT,” Victor added, sipping his own coffee. He had bacon and eggs himself, and some fruit salad, which he poked at with a fork. “Yuuri said he knew people who’d been told to cancel their research projects, when they’d only ever had private conversations about them with their chips turned off. It’s the kind of thing you don’t like to hear or think about, but it’s so essential to have a chip these days, especially in our line of work, that it’s easy to ignore it and just hope you don’t run into problems yourself.”

“That works until you do run into problems,” Yuuri said.

Victor chuckled mirthlessly. “We found that out, didn’t we?”

“Were you two on the run all that time?”

“We had a house in an offline community,” Victor explained.

“What, one of those communes? You?”

“You’d probably like it there,” Victor said, gesturing at him with his fork. “I’d recommend it. But not if you want to be a scientist.”

“They chased you out of there, then, did they?”

Victor and Yuuri were silent. Eventually Yuuri just said, “Yeah,” putting his fork down and leaving the rest of his egg uneaten.

“Shit. And then they erased your memory, and…shit. This is the same Institute you used to do all that work for?” Victor nodded and drank his coffee. “Jeez, I’m sorry for you bos. I guess that just goes to show you what massive problems there are. This stuff goes on right under people’s noses. No one’s safe from it; they can all be blackmailed. There’s an enormous archive that holds more information than you’d believe on politicians, businesspeople, celebrities, everyone in the public eye, with money or power, right down to your ordinary jack on the street. Cause just about everybody’s got a chip.” He leaned in with a conspiratorial air. “And you know what? They listen in on people’s private moments, if you know what I mean, like they’re some fun entertainment.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that too,” Yuuri muttered.

“Well it whacks, if you ask me, and I’ve never accepted spying jobs that compromised my principles, so to speak.” Victor raised his eyebrows. “OK, I know I’ve got some more thinking to do about that. But in the meantime, I’ve been more and more concerned about it, and it isn’t right that what amounts to just a handful of people have got so much power with all this information, and I’ve been wishing I could find a way to use my position to make a difference somehow. But I haven’t been able to figure out what I could do, and I wasn’t sure who I could trust completely. And I’m only one jack, you know? It’d probably be like a gnat trying to bite an elephant or something.”

“I know how that feels,” Yuuri said, finishing his tea.

“Yeah, well…I get some privacy for myself when I need to, anyway. Though I can’t have this thing on all the time – ” He gestured to the device on his lapel. “ – or they’d think something was wrong. I’ve even seen the place where they control it all from. Not that it’s anything special. Just a building with a tech center, or nerve center as they like to call it, where all the active chips connect to the Cloud. I’ve done debriefings there sometimes after assignments, cause other things go on there too, but my clearance includes places like that anyway. They have some flink stuff there. I managed to sneak this blocker out without authorization, though they eventually found out and let me keep using it, since I said it came in handy with my work.”

Yuuri had been sitting with his arms folded across his chest, staring at his breakfast plate and listening; but now he was looking up at Chris with widening eyes. “Nerve center?” he said.

“Yeah, it’s in the middle of Boston.”

“It is?”

“What, you’re surprised? Very handy access to the best school of engineering in the world. I thought you might even have known about it yourself, seeing as how you worked there.”

“I wasn’t in the engineering department,” Yuuri muttered. “Phichit never mentioned it, either. Maybe he didn’t know himself…”

Victor looked at him for a moment with a wrinkled brow, then turned back to Chris, who was stirring his cooling oatmeal. He’d been too busy talking to eat much of it. “You never thought to tell me _any_ of these things before now?”

Chris returned his gaze. “I didn’t see how I could, since the biggest part of my job description was not to. But then you disappeared, and no one knew where you were – or if they did, they weren’t saying. I thought it might be connected with Yuuri’s disappearance, but it was all just guesswork. I realized too late that I should’ve let you know I wanted to be a friend, someone who might be able to help. But maybe by then, so much time had gone by, I thought if I told you, you…might be kinda flayed.”

Victor put his mug down and sighed. “I won’t pretend it felt like anything other than a betrayal at first, the spying, but…I can see you’ve got a good heart, Chris – you always did – and I believe you.” He paused and gave him a warm little smile. “Thanks for taking care of Yuuri and me like you have.”

Chris stared at him for a moment, then smiled back and huffed a laugh. “You’re very welcome, amigo.” He took a spoonful of oatmeal and swallowed. “So what are you two planning to do next? Where are you gonna go? Do you know?”

“We…” Victor paused for thought, then realized how quiet Yuuri had been, and noticed he was looking at the blank wall ahead of him with a bright, intense gaze. Had he suddenly been contacted by one of his presences? “Yuuri?” he said softly.

Yuuri scooted back in his chair. “I know what _I_ want to do next,” he said to Chris. Then he looked at Victor. His brown eyes were smoldering with a passion he rarely saw outside the bedroom, though this was different…full of determination. A shudder passed through him as he tried to understand. But before he could think of what to say, Yuuri told him, “I’m going to get into that building. I’m going to find a way to do some real damage. Something that’s going to shake things up in this entire country. Just let them try to fucking stop me.”

Victor’s jaw dropped.


	71. Chapter 71

No one spoke, and Yuuri looked from one to the other. “What, you don’t think it’s possible? I think it is.”

“Yuuri,” Chris said quietly, as if to someone in a panic, “when I told you it was just a building with a tech center, that was from a CIA point of view. You can’t just walk in – ”

“I know. You said you had access.” When the implication of the statement hit him, Chris sat back and stared again. Yuuri turned to Victor. “I could finally do something. Act. Instead of running away all the time.”

Victor’s stomach had dropped, and he was beginning to regret having breakfast. Of all the things he’d thought Yuuri might say, this hadn’t been one of them. “You realize how incredibly dangerous this would be,” he said in a low voice. “And what would you do when you got inside? How would you know what was there, never mind how to damage it?”

“I wouldn’t be aiming to damage the center itself – not directly, not unless I had to. I want to find a way to damage the chip.”

“But how would you know – ”

“I thought you would want this,” Yuuri said heatedly, pinning him with those intense eyes, and Victor felt his blood begin to race. What was he _thinking_? Was there any way to talk him out of it?

“You mean, do I want you to enter a secure government compound and risk your life for what might turn out to be nothing? Yuuri – ”

“Don’t you see?” Yuuri pressed, emotion in every word. “It’s the chance we’ve been looking for. I know you don’t want to keep running away from agents for the rest of your life, Victor. You want to go back to being a scientist. But this is even more than that. This could actually _help_ people. Damaging the chip is damaging the surveillance state. It’s exposing what they’re up to. After everything they’ve done to us – don’t you want to hit them back? We could never see a way, until now.”

“Whatever this way is, I don’t see it,” Victor replied. “This is…assuming Chris could let us in…” Chris just looked at him in stunned silence. “…they’re not likely to let us wander around, exploring and testing. The first person who sees us might arrest us, pull a gun on us – ”

“Us?” Yuuri echoed.

Now Victor was beginning to feel angry, as well as surprised and confused. “Yes, Yuuri, _us._ You think there’s any way I’d let you do this on your own?”

“But…it _is_ dangerous, like you said.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no sense in us both – ”

“I’m not letting you go anywhere like that without me. I don’t even know how you could think that.”

Yuuri ran a hand over his face.

“So maybe it’s not a wise thing to do unless we can find some concrete ways to make it work. Unless you think I like the idea of sending you alone to your possible death.”

The room fell silent. Chris looked at Yuuri and Victor, who both looked down. Then he gave an awkward-sounding cough. “OK, well…for a start, just to satisfy any curiosity you might have, then yeah, I could let you into the building. But I don’t know much about tech myself, and I can only tell you what I saw in the control room. From what I understand, the chips are connected in some kind of web to the Cloud. I don’t know how. Maybe it’s like an electricity grid or something, maybe not. But – ”

Victor gasped, and the other two looked at him. “Webs, grids…You just reminded me of a conversation I had with Phichit – a friend of Yuuri’s at MIT,” he said. “One day he asked me if I wanted to see the engineering department and hear about his latest hobby. He was looking at the feasibility of person-to-person communication in the future using the chip.” He turned to Yuuri. “Did he mention that to you?”

“No. What was he doing, exactly?”

“He had a box of chips he was experimenting with. That’s how I found out where I could get them from. I remember now…he said he hadn’t told you because it involved the way your chip blew the day you gave the presentation, and he didn’t want you to blame yourself.”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What? I mean, yeah, it was my fault my chip blew, but – ”

“But at the same time, his own blew, and some of the visiting scientists had the same problem.”

Yuuri stared at him. “What? I never knew that.” He shook his head. “How – ”

“Exactly. How?” Victor said, warming to the subject. “Phichit said his idea was that there’s an invisible network between the chips. I think that’s interesting – how else would that have happened? He compared it to lightning. When the charges connect, there’s an explosion. He wanted to discover what that linking mechanism was, and he listed possibilities he’d thought of. Electromagnetic signals, thermal radiation, photons, quantum entanglement…even thoughts themselves.”

Yuuri’s eyes shot open wide. “Oh my god.”

Victor smiled and nodded. “Of course, there was one possibility he didn’t consider. I didn’t either, at the time, but…it does seem to link in with his suggestion about thoughts.”

“The reason why I’ve always had that problem in the first place…the ESP.” Yuuri held a hand to his mouth. “Shit. Of course.”

“Would somebody mind filling me in on this?” Chris asked.

Yuuri looked at him. “It might be possible to initiate some kind of chain reaction in the chips using ESP. I don’t know how many it’d affect, exactly…I mean – ” He shifted his gaze to Victor. “ – it was some of the scientists, but not all, whose chips were blown, right?” Victor nodded again, and Yuuri turned back to Chris. “But it might be a way to cause the kind of damage I was hoping for.”

“Assuming you can get to the control room and do what you need to do there. Even with that flink ESP stuff you can do, I think that’s a big _if_ , Yuuri.”

“If it’s a choice between that and running from agents for the rest of my life? I’ll take that chance.” He turned again to Victor. “I wonder if Phichit’s made any progress with what he was doing. Maybe it’s worth asking him, if we’re going to Boston.”

“Are we?” Victor said.

Yuuri looked at him in confusion. “Of course. Why – ”

“Yuuri.” Victor sighed and raked his hand through his bangs. He’d felt this fight beginning and intensifying within him as they’d been talking. Two sides at a tug-of-war. “It’d still be dangerous.”

“I know.”

“I’m not saying that as a coward. I…I don’t think I am. Some risks are worth taking. But…” He took a moment to consider how to explain. “Maybe this is selfish of me, but so be it. We lost each other when you left Boston. And again when we were caught in the woods. Each time we found each other, the relief I felt…” He swallowed. “I only regained my memory last night, and I don’t think a minute’s gone by when I haven’t thought about how glad I am that it happened, and I’m with you. And now you’re asking me to face the very real possibility of losing you in this…this break-in. Of us losing each other, again. I…” He gave a shuddering sigh, aware of Chris’s eyes on him as well; not caring. “I don’t know if my heart can stand it.” He took Yuuri’s right hand in his own, watching their rings glint. Yuuri squeezed it back.

“I don’t want to lose you either,” he said softly. “But what do we have left if we don’t try? Do you think we could do any better than the life we had at the Elkhorn Project? Neither of us could really do what we wanted to there. And look at how fast the agents caught up to us – it only took a few months. Do you want to keep living like that? Or did you have any more ideas for what else we could do?”

Victor looked at him. “No,” he finally said quietly.

“Maybe that’ll still be the only option open to us once this is over. But don’t you think it’s worth a try, to see what we could do?”

Victor felt the warmth and pressure of his hand. The tug-of-war was even.

“Remember what you said when we were running from the agents in the woods?” Yuuri continued. “ _No one can touch us._ Victor, we can hide ourselves from cameras. Avoid being hit by gunfire. I knocked out a group of seven people inside the Institute and exploded the door lock to get outside. We’ve got a few advantages, wouldn’t you say?”

Victor felt a swell of pride at Yuuri’s words. He must have been spectacular in there, rescuing him like that. And they could both do these things. But…they were by no means invincible. “I do remember saying that. I was right – until Crow showed up. That was all it took, Yuuri. _That’s_ worth remembering, too.”

“Why would he be at that building in Boston, though? We’re shielding all the time. He won’t know where we’re going or what we’re up to.”

“Who’s Crow?” Chris asked.

“He…um, he’s an agent with ESP who works for the Institute,” Yuuri explained.

“I thought they wanted to get rid of people like that…sorry, not the best way to put it, maybe.”

Yuuri shrugged. “If they can get you to use your ESP for their benefit, I think they prefer that.” He looked down at his hand entwined with Victor’s. “So…Boston?”

Victor closed his eyes. How he wished things had never come to this. But it was what they had to work with, and wishing didn’t change anything. With a small sigh, he opened his eyes and nodded.

“You two’re sure this is what you want?” Chris said.

“Yes,” Victor replied quietly, squeezing Yuuri’s hand again.

“You engaged or something, with those matching rings?”

A grin crept across Victor’s face, and he saw Yuuri blush and look down with a small smile. He had no answer for that yet, and Yuuri obviously didn’t either. After this was all over with, Victor decided it was going to be one of the first things he sorted out.

“OK, well, it’s your business,” Chris carried on. “I’d like to help if I can. What I really don’t want to do is blow my cover or risk my life; I can’t explode things or dodge gunfire like you two can. I’d just get in the way.”

“You’d never be in the way,” Victor muttered.

“Thanks, but I think in this case it’d be true. Anyway, I can get some things that might help you, and yeah, let you into the building. The only gun I had is unusable, but I can get more. And as for traveling to Boston, I could get us all on a train without having to give any personal information, and arrange for a place to stay. In fact…I’m not on a job right now, and I can claim I’ve gone to Boston for an acting gig. I could have us all there by this afternoon if you want.”

“Wow,” Victor said, considering this.

Yuuri rubbed his chin. “That’s maybe a little soon. We ought to make some plans, and…I don’t know, practice the ESP, if you’re OK with that, Victor. There’s no hurry, is there?”

“You’re the one who came up with the idea,” Chris said, looking at him. “Though if you want to change your mind – ”

“No, of course not. I just want to be prepared.”

“OK, then – why don’t I get us train tickets for Wednesday. That’ll give you a couple of days here. I can swing that.”

“Thanks, Chris,” Victor said. “We’ll be ready then.”

Chris left shortly afterward, and Yuuri showed Victor the marketplace, where they bought some food and a few extra clothes. Victor tried to talk him into buying a black silk shirt with a shimmering silver dragon over a shoulder, stretching onto both the front and the back, saying it would look magnificent on him.

“I’m not sure I’m the kind of person who should be wearing magnificent clothes in the first place, just to wander around a city in,” Yuuri said. “And…is now a good time to be thinking about that kind of thing?”

“Now” was always a good time to consider nice clothing when you came across it, Victor thought, but he didn’t say anything. He also considered surreptitiously buying the shirt to give to Yuuri as a present, but then decided that if he wasn’t interested in it, he wasn’t going to try to force it on him. Though it was a shame.

Victor suggested they stop for lunch in a Chinese restaurant they passed. “It’s been _ages_ since I’ve had Chinese,” he said. “I’d die for some steamed dumplings right now.”

It took a fair bit of arm-twisting, but eventually Yuuri agreed, and he ordered some hot and sour soup, stir-fried chicken and vegetables and Chinese tea, while Victor had his dumplings, duck with plum sauce, and a small jug of rice wine. “I don’t think I’m very hungry,” Yuuri said, prodding a piece of chicken with a chopstick.

“It’s a shame we won’t be in New York much longer,” Victor replied conversationally. “There are so many things I could show you here. And so many nice places to eat; you’d love – ”

“Victor,” Yuuri said with some force, putting his chopsticks down. “You’re acting like we’re on vacation or something. We’ll be in Boston in a few days, and I don’t know what’s going to happen there. We should be practicing the ESP, and we’re going around like a couple of tourists.”

Victor sipped at his wine, which he’d poured into a small ceramic cup. “All the more reason to enjoy ourselves first.”

Yuuri gave him a long contemplative look. “I know what you’re doing…You’re like the prisoner being given his choice of a fancy meal before he goes to his execution.”

Victor choked on his wine. “What?”

“You think this isn’t going to work. That we’re going to be killed.”

“I…” Victor began to protest, but then he stopped and thought. Maybe Yuuri had a point. Maybe he really had decided to try to make merry while there was still time.

Yuuri took his hand and looked at him earnestly. “If you’ve changed your mind, just tell me. I don’t want you to do this if – ”

“No…no,” Victor said quietly. “I haven’t changed my mind. I’m with you all the way, Yuuri.”

“Well, if I’m honest, I guess I’ve been kind of grim for the same reason.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I hate to think of losing you again. I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to make sure we come back out safe and sound.”

“Me too,” Victor said, returning his gaze, the frivolous mood that had felt so odd now evaporating.

“They can’t touch us.”

Victor squeezed his hand. “They can’t touch us.”

***

Chris brought them each a laser gun and maps of the building in Boston they planned to infiltrate, for which Victor and Yuuri both expressed their gratitude. He explained everything he knew about how the tech inside operated, which turned out to be very little. The agents had been back to search the apartment – a hopeful indication that they didn’t know where the two of them were. And despite their conversation in the Chinese restaurant, which had at least put the issue in the open, Victor continued to try to inflate a mood of cheerfulness, while a cloud seemed to hang over Yuuri at times. Victor justified his own behavior with a desire to live life as usual, because it would continue once they’d been into the building and escaped. If he bought things, they would be there for him to use afterward, he’d insisted. Nor did Yuuri seem overly pessimistic, or regretful of his decision – one that, upon reflection, Victor thought he might have made himself, given a bit more time to come to terms with the pros and cons. The main issue, he deduced, was Yuuri’s anxiety. All the signs were there. Distracted darting glances. Loss of appetite. Not much to say. Victor was in no doubt about it when he used the ESP and opened himself up to Yuuri’s feelings.

Apart from his understandable nerves about what they were planning to do, Yuuri’s concerns mainly seemed to stem from the fact that, try as he might, he couldn’t phase-shift his body very far; and of course the more frustrated he became with it, the more concentration he lost. He’d wanted to get to a point where he could try shooting his gun at his toe, but they both knew it was likely to result in the loss of the toe. Eventually Victor had suggested it wasn’t important, because if they wanted to be able to shoot at anyone, they couldn’t be phase-shifted anyway; and maybe practicing their aim would be a better use of their time.    

It took them a while to find a small enclosed area of a park in which they could fire their guns without too much worry about being noticed. The weapons weren’t loud, but could be easily seen from a distance, and even trees and bushes could allow flashes through their leaves and branches. Eventually, however, they found a suitable place; and phase-shifting the gunfire meant they didn’t damage anything they aimed at. Victor thought they’d done well, and he said so to Yuuri.

“I think your concentration’s improving,” he commented with a satisfied smile, pocketing his gun and putting on his backpack. It was a lovely out here; there was blue sky above, the birds were singing in the trees, and it was warm enough to take their jackets off. How could anyone have problems on a day like this? he thought.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good when I’m standing here with you,” Yuuri replied, putting his own backpack on. “No one’s chasing us or firing a gun at us.”

Victor playfully looped his fingers around the straps on Yuuri’s chest, pulling him gently forward until they stood close. “I may not have seen what you did at the Institute, but I saw you in the woods when those agents were after us. You were amazing, Zvezda. I can see the confidence in your eyes. Don’t try to talk yourself out of it, because it’s there.” He dipped down for a long soft kiss, and felt Yuuri shudder deliciously as he melted into it, placing his hands on Victor’s neck. When Victor broke away, his heart warmed to see Yuuri looking somewhat dazed, lips parted, eyes half-closed.

“I’ll believe anything you say when you do that,” Yuuri breathed, then looked at him with a smile.   

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Victor replied with a little smirk. “Right now I’m saying we’re going to get into that building in Boston and come back out together. Hm?”

Yuuri nodded and smiled again. It seemed the cloud had blown away, for now.

“You know what else I’d like to do, with this being our last night in New York? Go to a nice restaurant for dinner with you, someplace where they don’t know me well enough to recognize me and make trouble by talking about it over their chips. What do you say?”

Yuuri considered, then replied, “I can’t promise I’ll be able to eat much. But OK.”

“There are a lot to choose from. For starters, there’s – ”

But Yuuri laid a finger against his lips. “Surprise me.”

On their way to a taxi stand to find a vehicle that accepted cash and manual controls, they passed a long line of store windows. No one could blame him for looking, Victor thought. These seemed to be independent boutiques that specialized in clothing a little out of the ordinary. You could get proper Chinese clothes, rather than the ersatz westernized copies that most people wore. Vintage clothes from decades ago – though that was nothing new if you were used to visiting antique shops. Shoes of every shape and description, hats, even wigs…He wondered how he’d never discovered this gem of a street all the time he’d lived here, but well, New York City was a big place. When they got to the last store on the block, Victor saw what was on display and decided he had to go inside.

Yuuri hovered near the door. “Maybe I’ll wait out here.”

“Oh? You don’t want to come in and have a look?”

“I’m not sure steampunk’s my style,” he said, eyeing the array of Victorian and gothic clothes, most of which were creatively adorned with bits of metal – buttons, hasps, cogs, wheels, studs, chains, locks, clocks, filigree; the list was practically endless.

“Oh Yuuri,” Victor said with a smile. “It really could be. Just thinking about you in some of these things…” But maybe now wasn’t the best time to try to persuade him, he decided. “Well. I won’t be a minute.” He opened the door and entered a fantastic little world, while Yuuri continued to examine the clothes in the window.

All right, it took more than a minute, but it wasn’t long enough for Yuuri to change his mind and come inside. Victor tried the clothes on in the changing room, staring at himself in the mirror. He’d never worn anything like this before. It wasn’t the kind of thing you’d see hanging on a rack in an ordinary store, and so he’d never really thought about it. But…it was sexy, he decided. The question was, what would Yuuri make of it? He had a sudden vision of his love reacting in horror or bursting out laughing – and that kind of worry wasn’t something he was used to, because the fact was that he could pull off things with clothes that many other people couldn’t. But he didn’t think Yuuri would ever do that. And part of him was quivering in anticipation of how he _might_ react. Yes, he was going to try it and see.

“Did you get anything?” Yuuri asked him when he emerged.

“It’s in my backpack,” Victor said as they recommenced their walk toward the taxi stand. “I think I’d like to save it for when…we’re finished with what we’re planning to do. Something to look forward to.”

Yuuri eyed him curiously, the corners of his mouth turning up as he tried to decide what to make of that.

“Maybe when we come back to this city, and can spend a good amount of time here – as real tourists – we can get something from there for you, too.” He winked. “Now. How does Samovarchik sound as a place to eat?”

“Would that by any chance be Russian?” Yuuri asked with a laugh.

“How did you ever guess?” He paused. “That OK with you?”

“Sounds lovely. Come on.”


	72. Chapter 72

Perching his elbow on the armrest of his train seat, Yuuri stroked his lips and chin while watching farms, rolling hills, red barns and trees rocket past the window at five hundred kilometers per hour. Victor sat across the table from him, with Chris in the seat at his side. The only sound was the roar of the train and an occasional clink as one of the scattering of other passengers in the car stirred a hot drink or ate a meal. No one spoke. It would be a quick journey. Maglev trains like this were light years away from the freight trains he’d been riding. It felt as if he’d been in another world.

His mind hadn’t been still since the moment Chris had mentioned he had access to the chip control center in Boston. He almost wished they could get straight out of the train and get the job over with, before he tore himself apart from the inside out.

_This was what I had to do. If I carried on living as I was, knowing I’d missed this opportunity…_

Victor depressed. Himself depressed. Unable to find a way to reach the goals they’d set for themselves. Building houses, teaching children, cooking meals…Yuuri had told himself many times that others were content with such things, so why not him? Maybe he could learn to be.

Or maybe he’d end up spending his life running, hiding, and thinking about what might’ve been.

If he – they – did this, at least they would have tried. Assuming they survived, maybe he could live with that. And if need be, they could try again sometime. Something different. They weren’t helpless, were they? The way they’d been developing and practicing with the ESP.

_Only, I can’t phase-shift myself. I have to make sure I phase-shift everything else coming at me instead._

_I can do that. I’ve proved it._

_As long as I’m not so distracted that I can’t._

He ran his fingers across dry lips. His stomach seemed to be digesting rocks.

_It’s a good thing we’ve got Chris with us. Without his help…_

_…I wouldn’t be dragging Victor to his possible death._

_Jesus. What the hell am I doing?_

He swallowed, his fingers never ceasing their movements. The anxiety had vacillated like tides over the past few days. He was sure Victor knew, but he didn’t want to make a big issue of it. Didn’t want him to fear that it might gain a hold over him at a time when it was critically important that he remain calm and focused. He needed Victor to trust him. But he wasn’t sure he trusted himself.

_I believe in what I’m doing, and my ability to do it._

_Don’t I?_

He remembered the moment he’d entered his office at MIT to find Victor inside, announcing he was his new research partner. The heat and exhilaration of their first kiss. Victor appearing in the barn doorway with the greeting, _Ah. So it_ is _you._ Their caresses and lovemaking, gentle and frenzied and everything in between. The deeper, more intangible ways they’d connected with the ESP.

_I never thought I’d be lucky enough to fall in love, not ever in my life. I thought no one would want me. And I ended up with Victor. We’ve only known each other a year. Don’t take that away from me._

Who he was talking to, he didn’t know. He felt a tear slip down his cheek and tried to discreetly brush it away.

_Did I really decide that breaking into this building was important enough to put that at risk?_

_I did._

_What does that make me? A hero? The world’s biggest fool?_

More tears threatened. He forced himself to try to count the trees as the train went past, but it was moving too fast for him to make them out.

_[I hate to see you so upset, my love.]_

Yuuri’s eyes snapped to Victor, who was gazing placidly at him. He gave Yuuri a tiny knowing grin. _[That’s better. You’re thinking too much.]_

Yuuri leaned his head against the window, returning his gaze and grinning back. He felt like he’d just come in from the cold. Victor was right here in front of him. He understood. He loved him. Why had he been letting his nerves run away with him?

 _[I’m trying not to worry,]_ he sent. _[It’s not working very well. But I’ll keep trying.]_

_[What can I do to help?]_

Yuuri considered. He glanced at Chris, who was eating a candy bar and slipping curious looks their way, as if he knew what they were up to and was too polite to interrupt. Then he met Victor’s eyes again. _[Just be here for me.]_

 _[Always.]_ Victor took his hand in his own, then lifted it and softly kissed the backs of his fingers, his lips brushing against his ring. Yuuri felt a shiver travel down his arm and through him, and this time tears pricked at his eyes for a different reason entirely.

“Jeez, you two, get a room,” Chris said, but his eyes sparkled. “Or even better, get off the train. We’re coming into the station.”

Once off the train, Yuuri wandered over to the concrete embankment that stretched across the eastern length of the station, protecting it from the encroaching ocean. A cool salty breeze was blowing in, carrying on it the cries of gulls, and he took his fleece out of his backpack and put it on. While he gazed across the dark blue expanse, he felt a light hand on his arm.

“Did you miss it?” Victor asked.

“I…don’t know. It feels familiar, like coming home – in a way.” He paused to think. “But…so much has happened since I left. I’ve changed, while this has all stayed the same. It’s…well, it’s the weirdest feeling.” Looking at Victor, he added, “I’d rather be with you in our house at the Elkhorn Project. I miss that more, somehow, and we haven’t even been gone that long.”

Victor met his gaze, seeming to reflect. “Really? That’s interesting.”

“Maybe it makes a difference that I’m not coming back as a scientist. I can’t just go over to the neuroscience building and let myself into my office – though now that I’m here, it almost feels like I could. No, I…” He looked around him. Chris had come to join them, pulling his small black suitcase along, and was standing next to him. “…I’m a stranger here. Today, anyway.”

“This is nice and everything,” Chris said, leaning forward on the gray wall, “but remember what we said about how you two are recognizable here. Seems to be one of those odd things that you can be in a city like this and still bump into someone you know. We’re not that far from the universities where you worked, and people from there’ll be coming downtown all the time. They catch sight of you and start talking or messaging over their chip, and – ”

“I know,” Victor said. “You’re right; we need to move.”

Chris had reserved rooms in a downtown hotel. He said the chip center was part of the complex of private tech firms near MIT, but that it would be too dangerous for them to stay nearby; they ran the risk of being spotted by someone, and they might also be attempting to escape pursuit after they’d completed their mission. No one had objected to that reasoning, and they checked in at the machine in the lobby using fake names. Chris left almost as soon as they arrived, to see if Phichit was in and try to arrange a meeting for them all. Yuuri and Victor had agreed not to leave their room, though Yuuri was finding it increasingly difficult to pass the time while ignoring his worries about the task before them. Victor found a baseball game for them to watch on TV, and they sat together on the bed while Yuuri made comments about the events transpiring, to try to keep himself distracted.

“Flink – a frozen rope down the left-field line…He caught him napping…Oh and two, and he’s in the hole…”

Victor finally burst out laughing next to him. “This is English you’re speaking, right?”

“Of course.” He watched the batter swing. “He struck him out. Three up, three down.”

“And a dozen around the corner.”

Yuuri nudged him playfully. “Fuck. I can’t believe they still put commercials on at the end of every half-inning. I hate them.”

“Try to relax, sweetheart. I’m sure Chris won’t be gone long.”

Yuuri huffed. “What if Phichit’s on vacation? What if he doesn’t even work there anymore? I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s not likely, is it? With all the projects he’s had going on. And while it’d be nice to have his help, I don’t think it’s a necessity. We’ll manage. Now, are you going to explain to me what these things mean that you’re saying? What’s a twin killing? A Baltimore chop? It all sounds rather violent.”

Yuuri chuckled and slipped his arm around Victor’s. “I’m just saying stupid stuff. I mean, it’s _real_ stuff, but usually only commentators talk like that.”

“You’d make a good commentator. A fun one.”

“I wouldn’t have the nerve. And I’m not talkative enough.”

“Well, I’d rather watch you out there playing anyway. I bet you’d be just as good as them.”

Yuuri guffawed. “No.” And that was the honest truth. If someone threw a pitch to him at the speed they achieved, he’d probably jump out of the way, fearing for his life. Which was not that far from how he felt now, come to think of it…

They watched the rest of the game together, with Yuuri certain that Victor was just humoring him; but it stopped his mind from churning, and snuggling against Victor’s warmth put him at peace in a way few other things could. Wondering what was keeping Chris, and trying not to dwell on it, he suggested they review their maps of the chip center. He wanted to make sure he could see it in his mind with as little effort as possible, because god only knew what would end up happening to them while they were inside, and he didn’t want to draw a blank when he needed to find the way out.

“It doesn’t seem to be a big place,” Victor said. They each had a map, and had spread them across the desk. Where Chris had found or printed these out, he hadn’t said, but Yuuri was impressed by his resourcefulness.

“It’s bigger than the Institute. There are going to be more people inside, too, from what Chris was saying.”

“All the more reason to go at night.”

“Yeah, but…” Yuuri swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Second thoughts?” Victor asked. “It’s not too late to – ”

“No,” Yuuri said quickly. “But you don’t have to go in with me. If I knew you were safe…”

“I’m not leaving you,” Victor said in a quiet but firm tone, his eyes brooking no argument. “That’s one thing I’ll never do.” He ran his thumb across Yuuri’s bottom lip. “ _Zvezda moya._ Yuranya. I have faith that this will work. I _know_ it will. We’re an amazing team. And we’re strong. We can do this.”

Yuuri closed his eyes and sighed, Victor’s words filling his heart with courage, and his thumb sending little ripples of pleasure through him. “What did I ever do to deserve you,” he murmured. When he opened his eyes, Victor was smiling at him.

There was a sudden loud knock at the door, followed by a call of “It’s me – OK to come in?”

“Sure, Chris,” Victor called, not taking his eyes away from Yuuri.

The door opened and Chris entered, draping his jacket over a chair. “I’d forgotten what a nice town this is. I oughta come here more often. Maybe I can get an acting gig here for real.”

“What took you so long – did you find him?” Yuuri asked.

Chris looked around and strolled past the bed, seeming to decide he’d rather perch on the edge of the desk after Victor and Yuuri folded their maps up and put them away. “Oh I met your friend, all right. Nice jack. It just took me a while to explain who I was, once he got us someplace where we wouldn’t be overheard. I mean, this is on and working – ” He gave the blocking device on his lapel a tap. “ – but that doesn’t stop people from overhearing things if they’re passing by. Anyway, you should’ve seen his face when I told him you two were here. Seems like he’s been really worried. And well, before I left, he offered to show me around the campus.” He shrugged. “Who was I to say no? It’s a pretty swizz place. I’d never been in any of the buildings before, though I’ve heard you talk about it enough.” He looked at Victor.

“He gave you a tour?” Yuuri said, blinking. When Chris just shrugged again, he added, “OK – but what did he say? Can he meet us?”

“He said for us all to come back tonight, when most people’ve gone home, and he’ll let us in. Eight o’clock. That work for you jacks?”

Yuuri heart leaped at the prospect of seeing Phichit again. He was about to answer when Victor beat him to it.

“I believe the term here is ‘wicked pissah,’ ” he said with a smile.

***

The last vestiges of a purple twilight were lingering over the western horizon when they arrived at the campus. It felt to Yuuri like he and Victor ought to be able to walk through the doors of Building 46, go up to the office or sit with hot drinks in the atrium, and call up brain holograms. Get their research notes out, review where they’d left off, share data and inferences and ideas…and yet he might as well be any member of the public, walking down the white cement paths, admiring the buildings, musing about what went on inside; what those brilliant minds were up to.

Though they were in fact walking over the grass in the shadows along those paths, well-lit by streetlights as they were. They mustn’t be seen. No one appeared to be inclined to put in a late night tonight, but Yuuri knew there were always teachers, researchers and students using the facilities at all hours they were open. They would have to be extremely careful of that.

The nearest path to them was one that branched off to the building which contained the gym, and he was reminded of a day seemingly long ago when he and Victor had jogged around the streets of the city, listening to his playlist. They’d both ended up dancing while they were at it, thanks to Victor’s gentle persuasion. Yuuri had almost kissed him over there, by those doors. It was difficult to believe he’d been so nervous and self-conscious with this wonderful man. And now…

_Now I might be close to losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life._

He had to stop these thoughts, he told himself, or he’d risk endangering what they were trying to accomplish. Anxiety attacks and the infiltration of government buildings were an inadvisable combination.

When they got to the engineering building, Chris led them around the back, where Phichit had arranged to meet them at a side door. The white stone glimmered faintly under the streetlights between tall dark windows, though a few were lit as they passed. Yuuri had been planning to ask whether they were supposed to knock or wait until the door was opened for them, when he saw it do just that, a familiar dark-haired form recognizable inside the dim rectangle. Checking first that no one else seemed to be around, Yuuri quickened his pace, then ran, until he stood in front of Phichit. They looked at each other with wondering eyes while Victor and Chris made their way over.

Suddenly Phichit threw his arms around Yuuri, who chuckled and hugged him back. “What’s doin’, y’old chowdahead?”

“It’s good to see you too,” Yuuri replied with another laugh.

“Where the hell have you two been all this time?”

Yuuri pulled back. “Chris didn’t tell you?”

“He said he’d leave that to you. Hey,” he said by way of greeting to Chris and Victor.

“We’d better get inside,” Chris said. “If anyone recognizes these two jacks – ”

“Come on in.” Phichit stood aside, then closed the door once they were all in the hallway. “I haven’t got a private office of my own yet, but there’s one near here that belongs to a professor who’s on sabbatical. She won’t be coming in anytime soon.”

As they quietly followed him, Yuuri was again struck by the strangeness of the situation. Phichit looked like he always had. The usual cat-burglar-style clothes with a design on his shirt; this one sported a pearlescent peacock-feather print in a cluster on the bottom left-hand side. It felt like they ought to be going to the neuroscience office together, or even to a club. Not sneaking around the engineering building at night like…like the fugitives they were.

“Just here.” Phichit stepped in front of the little sensor outside the office, which beeped, the door clicking open. “I managed to wangle access today when I made up an excuse for needing some personal space. Drita wouldn’t mind. Though it’s kind of small.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” Yuuri said as he entered. Phichit had been right: if his own office had been a walk-in closet, then this was a broom cupboard. But it would do. There was a desk with a chair behind it, which Phichit sat down in. He’d obviously pulled three chairs out of a classroom for his visitors. There was nothing else here apart from shelves full of boxes, screens, electronics, old books, and a whiteboard full of mechanical designs. Yuuri sat down in the middle chair, with Chris and Victor on either side.

“Good evening, Mr. Chulanont,” a smooth female voice said. “What can I do for you?”

“Um…nothing, Astra. Leave us alone while we’re in here, OK? And don’t tell anyone else where we are, for any reason.”

“Certainly, Mr. Chulanont.”

“So – out with it,” Phichit said, leaning forward eagerly. “First you disappear, Yuuri. Then Victor. Where, and why, and what? Not a word from you. Next thing I know, my friendly neighborhood CIA agent is coming to visit, telling me he’s got you both in tow. Looks to me like you’ve gotten some sun. But other than that, I hardly know a thing.”

“You didn’t tell him much, did you?” Yuuri said to Chris.

“I thought maybe it’d be better coming from you. He knows about me keeping an eye on Victor.” Victor gave a little cough. “All right, spying on Victor. I said I met you in New York, and we all agreed to come here.”

Yuuri sighed. “Jesus, we’re going to be here all night explaining.”

“I’ll help,” Victor said.

“Chris said something about surveillance through the chip,” Phichit said. “Government people listening in, and keeping track of data, even when you think you’ve turned it off. He’s got that gadget on his shirt that blocks it? So no one can monitor what we’re saying. I thought something was wrong with my chip at first, until he told me.”

“Well, Victor and I can do that too,” Yuuri told him. “And we can make ourselves invisible to security cameras.”

“What? How?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“After you all showing up here? I’m willing to believe just about anything.”

After a pause, Yuuri said, “ESP.”

Phichit stared at him. “ESP.”

“That’s right. Victor can do it, too.”

“Not me, though,” Chris chipped in.

“You’re twanging me…aren’t you?”

“It’s true,” Victor said. “Yuuri, maybe you ought to start from when you left the neuroscience building and the agents were trying to kill you.”

Phichit’s eyes widened. He looked at Victor, then at Yuuri, and seemed to read the sincerity in their faces. “Holy fuck,” he said, his voice barely audible.

Yuuri backtracked a little from Victor’s suggested point in time, and told Phichit about the Institute and what it was doing to people with ESP. Allowed Victor to explain his part in it, though he jumped back in before Victor said too much, not wanting him to agitate himself about it. But it enabled Yuuri to move on to the ring with the Orphic egg symbol, his confrontation with Victor outside of the neuroscience building and the one following with Crow in the office, and the reasons why he’d only communicated with Phichit once more after that and had essentially told him nothing apart from the fact that he was going to disappear. Then he said a little about the communes. Having gone through it all once with Chris in the alleyway shortly after they’d met, it felt easier doing it a second time now. Phichit wore a permanently stunned expression as he listened. Victor explained some of the things they could do with ESP, which Chris confirmed. Yuuri didn’t think Phichit would insist on a physical demonstration in order to believe them, and thankfully that appeared to be the case, though he said it would be swit to see it at some point.

Yuuri didn’t mention his journey through the portal, simply saying that Victor had been captured but he himself had escaped, and traveled to New York to find him. He hoped he and Phichit would get the opportunity to have many more conversations in which they could relax and catch up in proper detail. When he got to the point where Victor’s memory had been restored, he paused, and Phichit sat back and looked at him like he couldn’t believe he was real.

“So I was here all this time, working and shit, and this is what you were doing? The ESP…living in communes…these agents chasing you and shooting at you…and Victor, and…Jesus, Yuuri, this is like…I don’t know. I mean, I had no idea. I’ve got about a million questions, but…”

“There’s a reason we’re here, Phichit. Don’t get me wrong – it’s great to see you. But Chris knew what he was doing when he insisted on all the precautions. They’re still looking for us, and the whole reason I went to California in the first place…” He glanced at Victor. “…why we stayed there, was because we were in an offline community. Besides the fact that they’d be looking for us here, it’s hard to live anywhere else without a chip. Try it sometime and you’ll see.”

Phichit considered this. “OK, so you didn’t take all these risks just to come say hi. I get that – and I totally understand. But why _are_ you here, then?”

Yuuri looked at Victor again. _[Tell him,]_ Victor sent. _[You’ve been doing a wonderful job so far.]_

He paused to think, then said, “Chris has access to the control center for the chip. It’s only about half a kilometer away from here. Victor and I are going to get inside and do whatever damage we can. Raise awareness of what the government’s up to. Hit back at these people who keep chasing us down.”

Phichit gawped, and the room fell silent.

“I said I’d let them in,” Chris told him. “I’m giving them whatever help I can, but I don’t know much about how things inside work, or about the chip. I guess they were hoping you might.” He looked to Yuuri and Victor for confirmation.

“How can I know how things work inside when I’ve never been in there?” Phichit said with a slight squeak.

“You can’t – but you told me about the research you were doing on the chip,” Victor said. “You brought me to a workshop in this building, and you had boxes of chips there that you were experimenting on.”

“Phichit, we’re not making any demands,” Yuuri said quietly. “We just wanted to find out if there was anything you could tell us.”

“Well…like I said to Victor, it’s something I’ve been doing in my spare time. I haven’t had much of that, with working on the camera for that Titan rover on top of the tech support – it’s been a busy year for that because we’ve been short-staffed a few times. I wish I could tell you I’ve made some amazing discovery, but…”

“Do you think we could go to the workshop? Get some chips and maybe try some things out on them?”

“And I wouldn’t mind having a closer look at your research, if that’s all right with you?” Victor added.

“You mean the mechanics room? Yeah…sure,” Phichit replied, though the expression on his face suggested he was still struggling to take everything in. “You…you’re serious? About going into that building? What if you’re caught? You said they were already after you – ”

“Let us worry about that,” Yuuri said. “Right now we just need your help to get into the workshop without anybody seeing us.”

Phichit nodded, and like a man in a dream, he led them through the dim, quiet halls of the building, staying well ahead and checking around corners before deciding it was safe for them all to proceed. When they arrived at the mechanics room, Phichit went inside first and satisfied himself that no one else was around, then came back out to his three visitors, who had been waiting in a dark alcove off the hall.

“There’s no one there now, but you never know,” he said to them. “Somebody could walk in at any time. I mean, the probability is smaller at night like this, but there’s no guarantee.”

“Well seeing as how I don’t have as good a reason to go in as these two,” Chris said, “why don’t I stay out here in the hall, and I can get rid of anyone who shows up.”

“Get rid of?” Phichit said, unable to hide his alarm.

Chris looked confused for a moment, then he laughed heartily. “You thought I meant ‘get rid of’ as in ‘ghost them’, didn’t you? I’m not an assassin or whatever else you might think. I meant I’d make something up about…I don’t know, a chemical spill or something, tell them the room’s off limits tonight. I’m pretty good at that kind of thing. But if it doesn’t work, I’ll make sure I warn you before they come in. Or…” He shrugged. “…I’ve got a laser gun I can use to stun them, but that might be kind of drastic.”

“Uh, yeah, maybe,” Phichit mumbled. “Though if you didn’t have any other choice…” He took a quick breath. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Thanks for this, Phichit,” Yuuri said, touching his arm lightly.

Phichit nodded as the door opened, and the three of them went inside. Yuuri walked past an incredible variety of electronic components, screens, and pieces of metal in different shapes and sizes. When he glanced at Victor next to him, he wasn’t surprised to see a look of admiration and stark curiosity on his face. _We need to get you back to places like this where you can work,_ he thought.

“Here we are,” Phichit said when they reached a corner near the window, consisting of a bench area with shelves and more electronics. He pulled a box down. “Chips to experiment on, however you want to.”

“Yuuri, do you want to have a look at them while I go through Phichit’s research?” Victor asked.

“Sure,” he replied as Phichit called up some data on a computer.

“There you go,” Phichit said a minute later. “Like I told you, I haven’t really gotten any further with it since you were here the last time. If I’d known you were going to come back and ask…”

“You haven’t made anything go ‘boom,’ ” Victor said with a smile.

“Not yet. But I will.” He turned to Yuuri as Victor bent over to read the screen. “Why don’t we move to a clear area over there so we don’t distract him.”

He swept a pile of components aside to make room on the counter, then opened the box of chips. Yuuri took one out and unpackaged it, wondering what he could try. “Is there any way to make these…live somehow?”

“Kind of. I’ve got a gadget that mimics a BCI so that they function in a basic way without being connected to a brain. But I don’t completely understand how the chip works myself; I don’t know if someone could decide to listen through them, as you say they do – ”

“It’s all right. Victor and I are shielding all the time. They won’t be able to transmit anything.”

Phichit looked at him. “Wow. You told me before that all you ever did with the ESP was talk to those presences, as you called them.”

“I’ve learned how to do more since then.”

“And Victor…how did he – ”

“People keep asking that. I always say we don’t really know; that it’s something we want to study.” Was he going to tell someone other than Victor the truth about this for the first time? Yes, he decided, he was. He lowered his voice so that Phichit had to come closer to hear. “But I suspect…well, it’s strange, but it’s possible…I had this really intense…private…dream about him while I was at the first commune. It turned out he had the exact same dream at the exact same time. He said it felt like it was being sent to him from somewhere else, though I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. How could I? I was asleep. But that was when it happened. He thought he was sick at first. In fact, he contacted me like the other presences do, and I helped him with it. I didn’t even know it was him until he found me in California. It’s a long story…I’ll tell you sometime, how he found me and how we learned about the ESP together.”

“Wow,” Phichit breathed. “You…you gave him ESP with…an erotic dream?”

Yuuri felt his cheeks heat up. “I don’t think you can _give_ it to someone. I think the potential has to be there already. Maybe waiting for something to spark it off. It’s possible…” He wondered how much to say without betraying Victor’s trust. “It’s possible it runs in the family for him, though we’re not sure yet.”

“Well, just don’t try to give it to me that way, OK?”

Yuuri snorted a laugh. Phichit returned briefly to his work station and came back with a small gray metallic box that had a screen on top. “The fake BCI. How many chips do you want me to get online for you?”

Yuuri stroked his chin and thought. “Start with one. But put it on top of something so the counter doesn’t get scorched.”

“Scorched?” Phichit raised an eyebrow and fetched a large silver-colored rectangular metal sheet, then placed the chip on it that Yuuri had chosen and stared at the silver box. “I keep forgetting my chip isn’t working with you jacks around. Hang on, there’s a manual override.” He went back to his work station, where Victor continued to read the screen, fetched a digital pen, and returned. “Just give me a minute and it’ll be ready.”

When he declared that it was, Yuuri concentrated on it, and the tiny piece of metal exploded in a miniature white flash.

“Whoa cow,” Phichit said, his mouth hanging open. “Did you really do that?”

“It’s not hard. I wonder…Can you try getting ten online, all at once?”

“Yeah, sure. Hang on.” He began to unpackage the chips, and Yuuri helped.

“How’ve you been?” Yuuri asked him as they worked.

Phichit huffed a laugh. “Me? You’ve done all this incredible flink stuff and you’re asking about me?”

“Yeah, leaving everybody you know and love while people are trying to track you down and kill you is a hell of a lot of fun.”

There was a silence as they finished pulling the chips out of their packaging. Then Phichit began putting them online, one by one. “I wish I had more to tell you, Yuuri. Working on the Titan rover’s been amazing. You know, it’s not too late for me to do an astrophysics degree.”

Yuuri smiled. “No, it isn’t.”

“I haven’t had any better luck with bos, though. There was one I dated for a while after you left, but it kind of fell apart.”

“Are you dating anyone now?”

“No. But…do you know if there’s any competition for mister schway CIA agent out there?”

Yuuri laughed. “Chris? I don’t know much about him; we only just met.” He eyed his friend. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Phichit shrugged as he tapped at the screen with his pen. “Well, he seems like a really nice jack. And…he’s prime. Kinda…” He smirked. “…julicious, even. I guess you wouldn’t notice, though, since you’ve gotten together with your dream bo.” Before Yuuri could reply, he went on, “So…how serious is this between you?”

Yuuri folded his arms across his chest and grinned, his eyes flitting downward. “We were living together at the commune. We had a house. It was…” He sighed. “It’s really special being with him.”

“Hey…that ring on your finger – Victor’s got one too. Have you gone and gotten married? Yuuri? Have you?” His voice rose along with his excitement.

Yuuri shushed him, his cheeks flaming. “No,” he whispered. “I’m planning on doing something about that soon, if he’s willing, which I think – I hope – he is, but…anyway, have you got those chips ready yet?”

“Conspicuous subject change? Yeah, I finished the last one a minute ago. But you know, I’ve gotta say it’s nice talking with you again, and…I’m really happy for you, Yuuri. You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri muttered with another grin. He was sure he was flushed down to his chest.

Phichit’s voice quietened. “So tell me again why you want to risk throwing all that away by breaking into this government building?”

“I…” Yuuri wasn’t sure how to explain so that he’d understand. He didn’t have anything like the full picture of what he and Victor had been through yet. “Believe me, I’ve thought a lot about this, and it isn’t easy. But even though we were settled for a while at the commune, we were still technically on the run. We’ve lost everything we had out there. And it’ll probably just keep happening. We can’t get jobs in science because you need a chip for those. And we’re not getting chips because the people who are after us will find out where we are. If you were aware of everything they know about you, maybe you wouldn’t want one, either. But the whole country’s designed so that it’s really hard to get by without one. Something – someone – needs to shake it all up, Phichit. There must be a way.”

Phichit looked at him, taking this in. Eventually he said, “I’ll help you as much as I can. What are you going to do with all these chips?”

Victor strolled over to join them, and looked at the array Phichit had set out. “This is interesting, what you’ve done here,” he said. “How closely does it mimic the BCI?”

“Well it’s not exact. I’d say it replicates about forty percent of the crucial connections. It’s enough for me to be able to work on. I’ve been meaning to fine-tune everything when I had time.”

“From reading your notes, it looks like you’ve ruled out electromagnetic radiation as a possibility for the network between the chips.”

Phichit scratched his head. “Yeah – and besides, it seems an obvious thing. If it was, I dunno, radio waves or ultraviolet radiation or something, you’d think it would’ve occurred to somebody before now. I think it must be more…what’s the word…esoteric than that. I still think quantum entanglement’s a good candidate – but I’d have to bone up on my quantum physics before I could make any sense of it. It isn’t something I know much about.”

“It’s really promising research, Phichit. You ought to try to convince the university to fund it so you could do it as part of your job.”

“That’d be great. I’d love to have your help, too, Yuuri. You’re the one who started it all, causing all those weird effects. So what _do_ you want to do with these chips?”

“I thought I’d try for the chain-reaction effect,” Yuuri said. “Blow one and see if any of the others do something too. A complete shot in the dark, but you never know.”

“Well, all ten of them are online now.”

“OK.” He closed his eyes and concentrated, then opened them and chose a chip to focus on. It exploded in another bright little puff – along with five others.

“Shazam,” Phichit said, staring at the black scorch marks on the metal where the chips had been.

“You said you were just going to focus on one?” Victor said.

Yuuri nodded. “I wasn’t trying to blow the others, but they all went together anyway. I wonder why it’s some and not all.”

“That could take a while to figure out,” Phichit said. “I think you’d have to understand the underlying mechanism first. But Yuuri, being able to do that…that’s so flink. Can you explode other stuff?”

“If I need to. I don’t go around doing it for fun.”

“What happens if you both try it at the same time? Do you get double the effect?”

“Good idea,” Victor said with a smile. “Can you link six more chips up to your little network here? And we’ll see if we can do anything to these four that were inert when Yuuri tried on his own.”

“Won’t be a minute,” Phichit said, tapping at the screen on the gray box.

“You think this is something we might be able to use in the control room when we’re in the building?” Yuuri said to Victor.  

“Maybe. The idea hinges on how the chips gain access to the mainframe. Whatever interconnectivity exists, if it’s straight through the Cloud rather than through this other type of network Phichit’s been studying – if the two are discrete phenomena – I don’t know how the ESP would affect it, if at all.”

“But…” Phichit said. Then he paused and turned to look at the both, his eyes suddenly bright. “ _But_ – what if other people knew what you were doing and tried to help?”

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean? How are we supposed to recruit other people to help us?”

“Over the _Cloud_ ,” Phichit replied, as if this were the greatest idea in the world. “That’s what you’re going there to mess around with, isn’t it? You’ll be in the control center. Do a broadcast. Tell all the people out there to do whatever it is you do to make these things explode – only have them channel it to the control center. And maybe then we’ll see if anything happens along this network I’ve been studying, too. That way, instead of just damaging the mainframe, maybe you’ll end up with the Yuuri Katsuki Chain Reaction, and you’ll have chip damage on a massive scale.”

Yuuri and Victor stared at him.

“This sounds wonderful, but it’s all highly speculative,” Victor eventually said.

“And breaking into that building isn’t?” Phichit countered. “It’s more of a plan than you came in here with – am I right?”

“A broadcast,” Yuuri reflected.

“Everyone’ll be listening. Tell them whatever you want to tell them. Oh – and I think all the chips here are online now. Let me just see…” He bent over to look at the gray box. “Yep, all ready.”

“OK, Yuuri, should we both aim at the one there in front?” Victor said. He pointed, then took Yuuri’s hand.

“This is supposed to intensify the reaction?” Yuuri said with a smile, squeezing his hand.

“It’s intensifying mine,” Victor said nonchalantly, and Phichit gave an exaggerated eye-roll. “Countdown from three? Ready?”

“Go for it.”

“Three…two…one.”

On “one,” all ten chips exploded, followed by three cries of delight. Yuuri and Victor hugged while Phichit studied scorch marks and tiny pieces of twisted metal and gritty debris.

“Shazam,” he whispered.

***

Phichit and Yuuri stood together in the side entrance to the building not long after, Phichit having said his goodbyes to Victor and Chris, who were waiting outside in the shadows.

“I can’t believe you’re disappearing a few hours after I saw you for the first time in ages,” Phichit said. “And if I’m honest…” His voice began to waver. “…I’m not sure I’m going to see you ever again. Can I try talking you out of this one more time?”

“It won’t work,” Yuuri replied quietly. “But thanks for your help here. I think we stand a better chance now. When this broadcast happens – and it will – you’ll…you’ll know. You’ll see it. But until then, once we’re gone from here, you can’t say a word to anyone. Don’t message or call, or do anything else that could be picked up over your chip. I hate to say this, but because of who you are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were monitoring every word and action of yours. I…I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s OK, amigo. You know me. I won’t tell a soul. Just…take care of yourselves. Each other.”

“We will,” Yuuri said, sniffing back tears as he gave Phichit a hug.

“You’ve changed, you know,” Phichit said, clasping him back. “You’re more mellow. But serious at the same time. You seem…more confident, too.” He pulled back and looked at him. “I suppose none of that’s too bad for where you’re going and what you’re planning to do there.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I always thought you wouldn’t go far wrong with Victor around.”

Yuuri smiled. “That too.”

“Come back when this is all over with, both of you, and we’ll have a big powwow. Actually…all three of you, if your schway man in black’s still around.”

“You got it,” Yuuri said softly. “We’ll see you soon.”


	73. Chapter 73

They decided they would infiltrate the building the following night. On the way to their hotel rooms, Chris said he would pick up some supplies for them from a CIA warehouse the next day and return in the afternoon. It was late when they got inside, and Yuuri stood next to the bed, feeling a tremor pass through him. The steely resolve he’d achieved had grown distinctive cracks through which black fear leaked when he imagined what might happen to them. He remembered how concerned he’d been that Victor might get hurt when they hopped the train to Sonora. But this was in a completely different league.

“You’re worrying again, my love,” Victor said, coming to join him. He looked into Yuuri’s eyes and ran his fingers down his cheek.

“You can’t tell me you’re not. I keep asking myself if I’m about to do the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“If I thought it was stupid, I wouldn’t have agreed to it.” He kissed Yuuri’s forehead, then his nose. “Sure I’m concerned. But I also have faith this’ll work. We should try to relax. I know lots of ways to do that,” he whispered with a little grin.

“I…I don’t think I can. I’m sorry, Victor; maybe I should just lie down and try to get some sleep. God knows how,” he added in a mutter. “It feels like…I don’t know. A horrible weight on my shoulders.”

“Then let me help take it off them,” Victor said in a coaxing voice, stroking the dark hair near his temple. “I can…massage tense muscles. Caress your cares away,” he said with a playful smile, dragging his fingers under Yuuri’s chin. “Worship your body,” he breathed against his cheek.

 _Oh god._ Yuuri’s legs felt like they’d turned to water, and a band of heat was tightening across his abdomen. Sex had been the last thing on his mind a minute ago. But Victor’s words were kindling a fire. He placed a hand on his cheek and tilted his head forward and up for a kiss, humming when he felt Victor’s soft, warm lips on his. Victor licked into his mouth, and he moaned as their tongues pressed together and circled.

“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?” Victor murmured.

Yuuri stared at him heatedly, then pulled him down onto the bed with him.

***

They risked a short trip outside the hotel the next day, while they were waiting for Chris to complete whatever business he was on.

Yuuri had seen dark circles under his eyes when he got up and looked in the mirror, and nicked himself while shaving. _I can’t believe I’ve started the day like this._ He needed his mind to be at its sharpest tonight.

Victor had gently pleasured him in every way he’d promised the night before, and Yuuri had tried his best to do the same, though he doubted he was as talented at it. And it _had_ been soothing and relaxing, until their needs had become too pressing. Once they’d seen to those, they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. But Yuuri had nudged away in the night, afraid of waking Victor, as he inhabited some endless dusky zone between sleep and alertness where nightmares lurked. Trapped in nondescript corridors while they ran for their lives, the gunfire solidifying as their concentration slipped. Too many people coming at them, too many to stun, handcuffing him and dragging him away while he screamed Victor’s name. Entering the control center only to find there was nothing, nothing there at all but an empty room with screens. He was relieved when the first rays of sun crept through the window, though for once even the reassurance of Victor next to him couldn’t dispel the shadows of the night; not completely.

He wished he could revisit just one of his favorite places in the city, but it was too risky. Though he knew this could be his last day of freedom, or Victor’s – or even the last day of their lives; and the thought set him off shaking until he mastered himself. He’d pulled the little horseshoe from the Cracker Jack box out of his backpack and fingered it most of the morning; and if Victor noticed, he didn’t say anything. If this really was their last day…he wanted to look upon the Charles River one more time in sparkling sunlight, with the white sailboats gliding on its flowing blue waters. Stroll through the Public Gardens with Victor like they’d done a year ago, and take a swan boat. They’d kiss and laugh, and Yuuri would glow inside with the knowledge of how different it was from the first time, when he’d been so nervous. Go to the bar in Beacon Hill where they’d shared a meal, and Victor had put on a New York accent, and everything was new and overwhelming – and wonderful.

But to do any of those things would be irresponsible in the extreme. People from the universities regularly went to those same places; they weren’t far from the campuses. After a meager lunch in the room, however, and poring over their maps again, Yuuri declared he would go stir crazy if he couldn’t get out for a while, and he suggested they visit the beach on the harbor near where his former apartment in Eagle Hill was, which had hosted the sand sculpture exhibit. Victor hesitated to agree until Yuuri said he wanted to practice phase-shifting there. When they arrived – the beach not being very busy on a weekday in April – they found a quiet stretch of sand with only themselves and the gulls for company.

“This is a good spot,” Yuuri said.

Victor looked around. “It’s beautiful here.”

“I meant for practicing.”

“Yuuri…I admire your determination. I always have. But I thought we agreed that it wasn’t important for you to be able to phase-shift your body if – ”

“Well I’m getting better at that, little by little. Maybe I can try it here, but that’s not the main reason why I wanted to come.”

“Oh?”

“I meant to tell you. Something I started doing when we were being chased in the woods; and it worked when I was at the Institute, too. Instead of concentrating on the fire from an individual weapon, I’ve been doing something like the shielding, where I imagine everything that penetrates the umbrella goes transparent. It means it doesn’t matter how many people are firing at you, or from what direction.”

Victor’s eyes opened wide. “Yuuri, that’s genius! Of course. Why didn’t I think of that before? But…why are we here, then?”

“I thought this might be a good place to practice it.”

“No one’s waiting to fire laser guns at us,” Victor said. “At least, I hope not. But…” He looked again at their surroundings, then back at Yuuri. “…water and sand?”

“Exactly. Pretty safe to attack each other with, don’t you think?”

“Depends on how cold the water is.”

“Really?” Yuuri raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to get through your defenses? Where’s that Nikiforov confidence?”

“Oh, no. I was thinking of _you_. How good are your reflexes, I wonder?” He kicked a small spray of sand at Yuuri’s legs, and it seemed to pass straight through, landing behind him.

Yuuri laughed. “If anyone knows how good my reflexes are, it’s you. Heads up.” He kicked sand back at Victor, who phase-shifted himself. “No fair – that’s not what you’re supposed to do.”

“I wasn’t ready!” Victor said petulantly. He kicked a larger spray of sand at Yuuri, and it passed through him as before.

“No dice,” Yuuri said. “But…I’ll give you time to get ready. Try it properly this time.”

“I _am_ ready now.”

Yuuri kicked some sand at him, and it passed through him, leaving no marks on his black pants. “Come on, you must have some grit on you at least, if this was your first try.”

Victor brushed his legs. “No. But this wasn’t my first try, not exactly. It’s just modifying an existing skill, not learning a new one.”

Yuuri huffed. “Is there anything you’re not good at?” he said, knowing he’d said it before but voicing the sentiment again anyway.

“Well, don’t ask me – ”

“ – to try to be a gardener. You’re terrible at taking care of plants.”

“You read my mind.” He kicked more sand at Yuuri, who laughed as it passed through him again.     

They practiced for a while with the sand, more because it was fun than because they actually needed to. Then they moved on to trying to splash each other. That was fun too, Yuuri thought; but he was also amazed that neither of them had gotten wet apart from where they’d done it to themselves while aiming at the other. Not a drop, it seemed. When he remarked on it, Victor came over to him with a smile.

“Why are you so surprised? You know we’re good at this.”

“I don’t know. I…I guess I must’ve lost some confidence with all the worrying I’ve been doing. But this has helped a lot.”

“Good.”

“I guess we’d better head back to the hotel and see if Chris is there.”

Victor looked disappointed for a moment. “It’s a shame, but I think you’re right.”

“But not before I do this.” Yuuri pulled him close by his lapels and kissed him thoroughly. “I want as many of these as I can get before tonight,” he said when he broke away.

“I won’t complain – though Chris might.” Yuuri laughed. “You can have more in the morning, too. And as many times as you like after that.”

Yuuri looked into his eyes. Then the ghost of a smile crossed his lips, and he nodded.

***

Chris was waiting in his room when they got back to the hotel, and he let them inside. “I hope you jacks were careful when you went out,” he said as they both sat down on the bed. “You know it was dangerous.”

“We were practicing for tonight,” Yuuri explained. He didn’t mention that before they’d left the harbor, he’d tried phase-shifting himself again. Victor had reassured him that he’d become transparent, but he’d been hesitant to try passing any objects through him just yet, or use a laser gun on his toe – not that they would have tried it at the beach anyway. A little more practice and he’d be there, Victor had said.

“You couldn’t practice in your room?” Chris asked.

“We had to use something for ammunition,” Victor put in. “Water and sand. Yuuri’s idea.”

Chris looked at him. There seemed to be a solemnity to his manner that hadn’t been present before. “I hate to think of you going into that building and being shot at.”

“That’s why we were practicing,” Victor said.

Chris gave a little sigh. “OK. Well, I’ve got presents for you.” He picked up a large bulging black backpack from the floor and began removing items from it that looked like hockey pucks, which he tossed onto the bedspread next to them. “Ever seen these before?” When Victor and Yuuri shook their heads, he explained, “They’re door jammers. Magnetic. Put them on the door or near the controls on the side and they’ll jam a door open or closed until somebody can use their chip to force it, which should take a little while because the data inside’s encrypted. Or something like that. I just use them; I don’t completely understand how they work.”

Yuuri picked one up to examine, and Victor did the same. It was black, metallic and heavy. “You just stick it on the wall?” he said.

“That’s all you do. They won’t work on doors with old-fashioned locks that need keys, but you won’t find any of those in a building like the one you’re going to.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri said, dividing up the door jammers between himself and Victor so that they had three apiece.

“Flashlights, if you need them.” Chris tossed two small black rectangular objects over. “You can vary the strength of the beam, or put it on red light.”

“What do we owe you for this?” Victor asked.

“You don’t need to pay me anything, amigo. I didn’t have to buy anything. Secret-agent privileges. This isn’t exactly expensive high-tech stuff that you need special clearance to take away. That’s not everything, though. You’ll like this bit, I think.” He reached in his backpack again and pulled out a pile of black clothing, which he tossed onto the bed, followed by two pairs of calf-length black soft leather boots.

“Are these uniforms?” Yuuri asked in surprise, holding something in front of him that looked like a panzer-style jacket, the left breast wrapping around the front to fasten on the right, with lapels divided in two. There were no insignia, stripes, name tags, or anything else to identify them.

“This is what they wear in that building these days. I’ve been looking into it to make sure I got the right things, though I remember them walking around like that when I was there. Black’s nice and swit, isn’t it? At least you don’t have to wear orange or something. Victor told me your sizes; I hope the fits are OK. I got a uniform for myself too, just in case anyone spots me outside the building – though that isn’t very likely.”

When Yuuri and Victor disentangled everything, they each had a jacket, pair of combat pants, a soft hat with a brim, and boots, all black. Yuuri tried the boots on. They’d been used, broken in by someone else’s feet, but they would do, he thought. When he looked over at Victor, he saw he’d put his hat on, having tucked his long bangs inside. His bright blue eyes shone clear and unimpeded. How could he always look so amazing, no matter what he wore? The fact that they were experimenting with real military uniforms only seemed to emphasize the gravity of what they were intending to do, however; and despite how fetching Victor might appear, Yuuri felt a shiver of apprehension run down his spine.

“Chris,” Victor said, taking the hat off and raking his fingers through his bangs, “did you find any method of communication that we can use?”

He tossed his empty backpack on the floor. “Nothing I can’t guarantee won’t be monitored. I don’t think that’s a risk worth taking. Besides, you two have got the ultimate secret way of communicating, with the ESP, which is the important thing. I’ll stick around outside, waiting for you, and be ready to cover your backs if you need me to.”

“You’re a good friend,” Victor said. “I’m sorry I got so angry at you in New York.”

Chris shrugged, but gave him a grin. “I probably deserved it. Anyway, we’ve got a few hours yet before we head on over there. Have you got a plan?”

“Roughly,” Yuuri answered. “I guess a lot’ll depend on what happens when we get inside, but we’ll be aiming to head for the control room. Phichit suggested we send out a broadcast that everyone with a chip will see.” He turned to Victor. “I guess you’d be the logical choice for that.”

Victor gave a start. “Me?”

“Well…yeah,” Yuuri said, as if it should be obvious. “You’d figure out how the tech in there works faster than I could. You…you’re charming. People will listen to you. You’re good at that kind of thing.”

“But you have a lot more experience with ESP than I do. You may need that, if you’re trying to help people create a chain reaction. You might have to explain to them what to do.” He gave him an encouraging smile. “You’re the teacher, Yuuri…so teach them. Inspire them with that wonderful passion inside of you.”

Yuuri teetered between basking in the praise and wanting to crumble under the weight of the enormous responsibility Victor was placing on his shoulders. Until now, he’d been assuming without a great deal of thought that Victor would be doing the broadcast. That was, if they got that far and found a way to make it happen in the first place.

“What if I get anxious?” he finally said, years’ worth of stressful lectures and presentations and seminars flashing through his mind – including one featuring a certain Polish professor from Oxford. Though somehow, he suddenly realized, the power that memory used to have over him had diminished considerably. It almost made him laugh. But the urge vaporized when he considered that the broadcast was essentially a presentation to hundreds of millions of people in an entire country. Jesus…

“You’ll be brilliant,” Victor said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “I have absolute faith in what you decide, Yuuri.”     

***

Three black-clad figures made their way that night to a small park near Kendall Square, and stood under the cover of trees and bushes while examining a long red-brick two-story building across the road. Light shone from several windows, but there were few people to be seen around the private tech firms at such a time. Unlike researchers or students, Yuuri supposed, most of them must have day jobs here and be happy to go home in the evening. That was handy.

“Whenever you two are ready, I’ll let you in,” Chris said. It was strange seeing him dressed all in black again, Yuuri thought. Over the past days, he’d gotten used to thinking of him as a kind of laid-back private detective with a heightened fashion sense. But there was clearly more to him than that, and his eyes were focused and intent as he spoke to them. “You sure you’ve got everything you need? Door jammers and guns in your pockets? Flashlights? Maps?”

“All packed and ready,” Victor replied. “Guns set to stun. I’m glad these pants you brought us have so many pockets.”

“Well I could’ve given you black backpacks – that red one you’ve got sticks out like a sore thumb – but you don’t want to have to be removing them and digging inside if you need something in a hurry. Let’s just hope you don’t.”

Yuuri swallowed in a dry throat. _This is it, this is really it, it’s now,_ his mind told him over and over. “You’re shielding?” he said to Victor, more as a comfort to himself than because he feared he wouldn’t be.

“I’m always shielding,” Victor said quietly, giving him a reassuring grin.

“You’re sure you don’t think we should go to the control room together, instead of splitting up beforehand? We had more of an effect of Phichit’s chips together – ”

“Two of us, as opposed to one, probably won’t make much difference. When you do the broadcast, ask for help. I’ll be creating the distraction to draw people out so you can get inside, like we planned, and keep their attention while you’re busy doing the important things.”

“Victor…I don’t know how I’ll be able to concentrate, thinking of you doing that. How will you prevent them from capturing you, or…or – ”

“Trust me,” Victor said, brushing a finger across his chin. “Remember – no one can touch us.”

“But either of us could lose our concentration, at any time. All it takes is one slip.” Yuuri felt embarrassed by the anxiety that was threatening to creep through his system, but the temptation to voice it was too great, now that they were just a few steps away from going inside.

“Then we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen. We can do this, Yuuri.” Victor held him in his steady gaze. “It’ll be over before you know it, and we’ll be back out here with Chris.”

Yuuri breathed his name, pulling him into a tight hug. Never wanting to let go; to allow this wonderful man to risk his life. Victor tilted his head down and guided Yuuri into a long kiss. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Oh Victor, I – ”

There was a polite cough just behind Victor, and they broke apart. “Chris,” Victor said, going to him next and giving him a hug. “Thanks for everything.”

“You say that like we’re never going to see each other again. Like you told Yuuri – you two’ll be out of there before you know it.”

Victor stepped back, and Yuuri surged forward and hugged Chris as well. “Thanks,” he said.

“Good luck.” Chris took his hat out of an inside jacket pocket and pulled it on, and Yuuri and Victor did the same, the three of them standing and looking at each other for a moment.

 _“_ _Om gum Ganapatayei namah,”_ Yuuri whispered. The others stared at him blankly. “It’s a mantra for removing obstacles,” he explained. “It, um…seemed appropriate.”

Victor smiled, and Chris just gave him an odd look, then said, “Come on,” leading the way as the three of them trotted out of the little park, across the road, and over the street to the building’s entrance. “They shouldn’t give me any trouble getting in,” he mumbled as he looked at the scanner next to the metal door. “My clearance should already be registered.”

There was a beep, and the door slid open with a quiet hiss. Yuuri couldn’t see anyone in the immediate vicinity inside; nothing but a corridor. It reminded him of the Institute. Chris had said these types of places were mostly run by tech, though they would probably come across more personnel the closer they got to the heart of the building and the control room.

“Go for it, amigos,” Chris whispered. “You know where I’ll be.”

Yuuri watched him glance around before trotting back over to the park, where the shadows swallowed him. Then he looked at Victor, mustering as much determination as he could from the deepest corners inside him. It felt like his eyes fairly burned with it.

 _[Are you ready?]_ Victor sent.

Yuuri nodded. _[Let’s do this.]_


	74. Chapter 74

They knew where to go, having memorized their maps. Yuuri fingered his gun as they walked cautiously through the corridors, taking turns leading the way around corners. Shielding. Listening. There were no voices to be heard yet; only the hum of machinery, presumably within the walls. Their silent communication was mostly limited to _[The coast is clear]_ as they focused on their task.

Yuuri’s heart leaped into his throat when he turned a corner and saw two men in uniforms like his own coming toward him. He walked forward, staring straight ahead as if he knew what he was doing and didn’t care to interrupt it, with Victor at his side. And he almost melted with relief when the men passed without pause.

 _[That was lucky,]_ he sent.

_[I agree. I wonder how long our luck will hold.]_

They continued for another minute – and came across an older man in an olive uniform with a colorful variety of pins and insignia on his shoulders, arms and chest. Yuuri didn’t know anything about military dress or symbols, but it seemed certain that this was someone important. The man looked surprised to see them. Yuuri attempted to walk past with the attitude of concentration he’d effected before, hoping it would work a second time.

“Wait a minute,” the man said. “Just hold on there. Where’re you two going?”

“Control room,” Victor answered quickly. “Tech support.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a problem.”

“We were just called.”

He eyed them. “I ain’t never seen either of you before.”

“We’re new.”

“Send me your ID.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, sir. There’s something wrong with the chips.”

“Wrong with the…” The man paused and then looked at Victor in surprise. “Goddamn, you’re right. Mine ain’t working. What the hell.”

“We’d better get to the control room,” Victor said.

“The hell with that. I want you two to come with me to the tech room and get this thing fixed. I can’t do jack shit without my chip.”

Yuuri could sense the alarm growing in Victor, but his blue eyes remained cool. “It’s a wider issue than just your chip, sir. There might be a problem with the Cloud connection. If we can just – ”

“We can ascertain that when we get to the tech room, soldier, and I’ve got a better idea of what the hell’s going on. Come with me, both of you – that’s an order.”

Almost before Yuuri realized it, the man was lying in a heap on the floor. Victor stood with his gun in his hand, looking like he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Then his eyes met Yuuri’s.

_[I didn’t have any choice. We couldn’t go with him.]_

_[I agree. But this isn’t good. We’re going to be – ]_

“Did you see that flash?”

“Down there – someone’s got a stun gun.”

The sound of boots – at least two pairs, Yuuri thought, and probably more – echoed in the corridor around the corner in front of them. A bolt of fear shot through him. They couldn’t turn and run. Besides the fact that there might be people behind them now, they hadn’t come this far just to give up.

 _[Be ready,]_ Victor sent, his gun poised.

_[I am.]_

_This really is it,_ Yuuri thought.  

***

God, _when_ would the military ever get the idea that being canned up in these bland, sunless, soulless buildings wasn’t exactly conducive to the wellbeing of their personnel? All right, it had been crap where he’d grown up. Dirt poor, no happiness, no hope. Not for most, anyway. But his people had never lost their awareness of the earth and sky and the living things around them. It was stupid to try to disconnect yourself. The ugliest places he’d ever been in had been of man’s own making.

They’d told him to spend the night here during his visit. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He was going to disappear to a hotel, where he didn’t feel like he was in a prison. The day hadn’t been a complete waste of time, at least, because they’d explained stuff to him in the control room that afternoon, though he hadn’t wanted to admit he didn’t understand half of it. The half he did understand might come in useful. Tomorrow maybe he’d relax with some tourist shit before going back to base; it’d been a while since he’d been here. Beantown, some called it, though he’d never heard anyone here use the name. You were supposed to eat Dunkin’ Donuts and clam chowder and take in a ballgame at Fenway Park. He wasn’t sure any of it appealed.

As he walked down the long white corridor, he noticed activity through the window in a metal door to his left. The army jacks were swarming in there like someone had poked a stick in their ants’ nest. Mildly curious, he let himself in and took a look around. They were mostly staring at a grid of screens on the wall, each showing footage from surveillance cameras.

And what he was seeing was very interesting. _Very_ interesting indeed.

“Is all of this live?” he asked a tall thin jack in the black uniform most of them wore here, though he didn’t subscribe to such things himself.

“It’s all the footage we’ve got of these jacks. If you can call it that. Something’s screwing up the cameras. That’s the live one where they are right now,” he said, pointing to the top middle screen. “They let you in here like that?” he added, eyeing all the denim.

“Don’t gimme that shit right now. How’d they get in?”

“Nobody knows. One of them stunned Colonel Iverson, and then they engaged some soldiers in armed combat – but you won’t believe what these screens have been showing.”

“Try me.”

“Well, we can see their gunfire. We can see soldiers trying to talk to them; shouting at them. But we don’t even get a visual at all until there.” He pointed at a screen near the bottom. “But it’s just a blur, like ghosts. All the gunfire aimed at them’s passing through, not hitting anything. Shit,” he laughed, “we thought at first someone’d hacked our system and was projecting all this for a prank. Or, y’know, maybe we were really looking at ghosts. That’s what some in here thought. Look there, though.” He pointed again. “When there’s soldiers coming from the front and behind, suddenly you can make out two jacks in uniform. But no one knows who they are. They certainly aren’t stationed here. And fuck me if the gunfire isn’t still going through them like they’re holograms or something.” He huffed incredulously and shook his head. “The two of them are hitting our jacks, though. They’ve got laser guns set on stun. And they seem to be able to sabotage weapons too – soldiers have had their guns explode right in their hands.”

This man was talking like he had a front-row seat at a circus and was giving a commentary; though as Crow listened, he discovered that others in the room were rather more concerned that the building had been infiltrated by two intruders with technology that had never before been seen, enabling them to elude gunfire and capture.

 _Technology._ Crow scoffed silently. The fuckwits had no idea what they were talking about…or dealing with.

“The camera’s lost them again,” the soldier continued, pointing. “They’ve disappeared. Watch, though, and they might show up again. The other weird thing is that as soon as soldiers are engaged with them, we lose contact. It’s like their chips stop working. Then after that…well, we haven’t been able to talk to anyone who’s seen them yet, because they’ve all been stunned.”

“Don’t you have something to do?” Crow muttered. “Shouldn’t you be out there trying to stop them?”

“I’m awaiting orders. What we’ve been doing doesn’t seem to be very effective. Maybe they’re trying to think up a strategy. Calling for reinforcements. Your guess is as good as mine.” He paused. “I wonder who they are. One of them looks Japanese. The other…who knows.”

Crow eyed the monitors, particularly the one that showed a sharp enough image to reveal that Katsuki and Nikiforov had found their way into the building for some unknown purpose that was important enough for them to be risking their lives. It was the last thing he expected to see while he was here…but then, when he thought about it – when he felt it out – he realized he’d _known_ he needed to be here, now. The spirit-sight was like that sometimes.

He hadn’t even felt their presence. He still didn’t, not at the moment. They’d worked out how to hide it, like he hid his own. He hadn’t been aware of that.

And shit, the things they were doing. He’d had a taste of it when they’d gotten Nikiforov in the woods. They’d obviously been practicing since. Had he made a mistake when he’d told Yuuri that day in his office that he didn’t even know what he was capable of? He seemed to have gone to town with the idea.

No, not a mistake, he decided. It had made things more interesting.

“There – look!” someone shouted, pointing at a screen.

It showed some kind of long hall or atrium. There must’ve been a couple dozen soldiers waiting behind the door at the far end. One second the scene was peacefully uneventful; the next, the door had opened and the soldiers were racing in, shouting and firing – at nothing. At first. The place was lit up with laser fire like a pop concert. White stun-gun fire erupted from out of thin air at the other end, and the soldiers started to go down, one by one. Then a shimmer, and then – yes, while their concentration was divided in so many different directions, they couldn’t stay invisible to the camera, it seemed.

The room fell silent as everyone watched, with the occasional muttered oath. Katsuki and Nikiforov were running across the hall, ignoring the laser fire zipping their way – which should have been instantly deadly but was passing harmlessly through them. And they didn’t bat an eyelid. Side by side most of the time, they simply dodged out of the way of their attackers, exploding their guns; and once they could get a good aim, down they went, stunned senseless. Crow watched Yuuri, hardly slowing his pace, point his gun at a soldier and fire. He was facing the camera, his eyes glinting like someone who would deal you death if you messed with him. He almost couldn’t believe this was the same person who’d been trembling in front of him in that godawful tin shack at the commune. And then he was racing alongside Nikiforov to the door at end of the hall. The hall in which the bodies of soldiers were strewn like carrion on a road, with scorched and ruined guns scattered on the floor, emitting a few weak fizzing silver sparks.

The way the two of them moved…it was like they were _dancing._ Crow had never seen anything so fucking beautiful. For a moment it didn’t matter which side anybody was on. He swelled with admiration and pride in what people like the three of them could achieve. They could leave absolutely everyone else in the dust – in the fucking _dust_ – and lord it over them like the kings they were, if they wanted.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” someone breathed.

“They’re gone from the cameras again,” the tall thin soldier said.

Crow found himself staring at the screens like he was eagerly awaiting the next episode of his favorite show. This was almost worth the rage that had threatened to consume him when he’d found out that Yuuri had snuck his beloved Victor out of the Institute under everyone’s noses while he wasn’t there; when he _could’ve_ been there if they’d let him stay a little longer. He could’ve stopped them. But then if he had, he’d have denied himself the treat of watching _this_ tonight.

What were they up to? Well, they’d chosen this building, and he’d had his suspicions about that beforehand. Which meant he had a feeling where they were headed. But for now, he was going to stay here and watch. Shame he didn’t have a box of popcorn to go with it.

***

Finally, a clear expanse of corridor. Yuuri breathed a silent sigh of relief. They couldn’t know where he and Victor were while they were shielding, and therefore couldn’t predict where to send the soldiers, it seemed. Though they would know soon enough.

It had felt at times like they’d entered a nest of angry bees. They hadn’t been overwhelmed yet, but when reinforcements came, as no doubt they would – wasn’t that what always happened in the movies when someplace was attacked? – they would be in trouble, especially if they brought weapons that the two of them hadn’t anticipated and might not be able to defend themselves against. They had to hurry.

Part of him couldn’t believe what he was doing, and was horrified. But a larger part of him – the part that was in charge right now – felt firmly in control, and full of confidence. Seldom in his life had he known what that was like. _They can’t touch us._ These soldiers were falling like dominoes before them. It was tempting to allow himself to be flushed with success; though he knew the _real_ success would be breaking into the control room and finding a way to do the broadcast and damage the chip. The shielding was easy when no one was attacking them, but in the atrium and elsewhere he hadn’t been able to devote his full attention to it and expected the cameras must have caught a glimpse of him. If he and Victor were identified, though, it shouldn’t matter, as long as they could get away.

 _[Are you OK?]_ Victor sent.

_[I think so. Are you?]_

_[Yes. We should be near the control room now. That might be difficult; it could be guarded.]_

_[I’m ready.]_

_[If there are a lot of them, go for their guns first, like we did in the atrium.]_

Yuuri stole a glance at him, his heart beginning to hammer as he wondered what awaited. Victor’s face was set in determination.

When they rounded the next corner, they were confronted with a group of soldiers – maybe ten – in front of a large metal door, holding riot-style shields like a phalanx, and pointing old-fashioned metal guns at them. “Halt and throw down your weapons!” a female voice at the front cried.

Yuuri’s breath caught in his throat. They were obviously attempting new tactics. It seemed safe to assume that the stun setting on their guns wouldn’t penetrate the shields. He wasn’t about to try to murder anyone by changing the setting to kill, no matter how desperate he felt.

 _[Phase-shift your stun-gun fire so that it passes through the shields and then solidifies,]_ Victor sent.

_[You’ve got to be kidding. How on earth – ]_

_[Try it.]_

They raised their guns at the same time, and the area erupted into a series of loud explosions as bullets flew through the air. Once again, Yuuri sacrificed his invisibility to the cameras in order to concentrate on making the bullets pass through him. The soldiers hadn’t moved from their positions yet, presumably waiting to see if they’d hit the mark first, which gave him an opportunity to fire his own gun. He visualized what he wanted to happen and hoped his mind, or whatever controlled his ESP, would make it so.

The soldiers went down as fast as the two of them could fire. Yuuri’s heart did a victory leap. The remaining few soldiers tried to run away, but they were soon senseless on the floor with the others. For a moment Yuuri felt like letting a crazy laugh escape him, but he swallowed and took a deep breath instead.

Victor bent down and examined some of the weapons on the floor, and Yuuri concentrated on shielding again. “There’s more here than just guns that fire bullets. Look at this.” Victor picked up something with a long thin barrel that looked more like a garden-hose attachment than a weapon. “This,” he said as he stood, waving it, “is a very crude, deadly version of the device I created to destroy the chip. _This_ will rip your insides apart.” He made an angry moue and tossed it on the floor, where it exploded in a burst of blue sparks. _“Ublyudoki.”_   

Yuuri stared, his eyes wide.

 _[That’s the control room behind you, according to the map,]_ Victor sent, and Yuuri turned to look. _[Slip into that nook over there while I create the distraction. And…good luck. You’re going to be wonderful.]_

 _[Be careful.]_ Yuuri wished he could hug him. Kiss him. Not have to separate from him like this.

Victor gave him a little smile, then disappeared around the corner.

Yuuri darted into the nook Victor had indicated and waited. The feeling of _I can’t believe this is happening_ had steadily been growing stronger, especially after he’d seen the weapon Victor had picked up. That had brought home, more than anything else, what they were risking by coming here. _Please don’t let this turn out to be a giant mistake._

Suddenly the walls rocked and vibrated with a cracking _boom_ , and white smoke and a bright flash shot down the corridor. Before he moved – before he did anything – Yuuri had to know. _[Are you OK?]_

_[Yes. Do what you need to do and try not to worry about me.]_

_You might as well tell me not to breathe,_ Yuuri thought. Victor had shown him the sticks of dynamite Chris had given him. They were only small, but they obviously packed a punch.

As they’d hoped, Yuuri heard the metal door slide open, and running footsteps. It sounded like most of them were heading down the corridor from which the explosion had issued, though a few came his way. This was the only place where Yuuri could remain out of sight, but it didn’t conceal him well, and soon he was noticed by a couple of passing soldiers; he stunned them before they could draw their guns. There were several more of them in the hall who were ready for him, and he disabled their guns before stunning them, then raced into the control room. Five people remained in here, three of them in civilian clothes. He dispatched them all, then glanced at the corridor outside; no one was coming, yet. Reaching into one of his pants pockets, he took out a door jammer and clapped it to the side of the doorway; it snapped in place, and the door slid shut. A little red light flashed on the black circle, presumably to signal that it had been activated.

 _Please still be OK, Victor,_ he thought as he trotted to the middle of the room. It reminded him of pictures he’d seen of various mission control centers, only smaller. The main feature was a far wall covered with screens, all flashing different programs – presumably live transmissions over the Cloud, though this couldn’t be all of them; he knew there were almost too many to count. Upon closer inspection, many of the screens were showing statistics – how many people were watching which programs, or using software or apps. Call and messaging traffic across the country and internationally. User demographics. If he sat here all day, Yuuri thought, he still wouldn’t be able to take it all in. And that was before looking at any of the screens lining the long curved desks.

There was one other exit from the room – a side door that led down a long series of small mazelike corridors, if his map was correct. He trotted over and placed a jammer next to it. That should keep everyone out for a while. And the people he’d stunned shouldn’t be a problem for some time either; though he quickly went to each of them and searched them for weapons, exploding them when he found them. The two soldiers were armed but not the three civilians. He felt bad about stunning them; they’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they’d recover.

 _[Are you OK?]_ he sent again.

_[Yes. Are you? Are you in?]_

Yuuri breathed a little sigh of relief as he approached the computers. It looked like most of them, having been hastily left as they were, had not yet had time to lock behind password protection; though Chris had given him a list of passwords to try using if he’d needed them. _[I’m in. I need to examine the tech. What’s happening out there?]_

_[I’m just on the other side of the door to the control room. There are people here with me. Their gunfire can’t touch me, but I’ve stunned some of them and am ready to stun more if I need to. So we’re talking. No one should be able to get in from here.]_

_[I’ve got a door jammer in place. Be careful.]_

_[You too.]_

It felt quick and impersonal, but there was no time for long heartfelt exchanges. If – when – they got out of here, they could indulge in plenty of those. In fact, the prospect of being wrapped in Victor’s loving arms seemed to make his current task a lot more bearable.

A cursory examination of the computers suggested they were all much alike. Why have them here at all, though, he wondered, if personnel ought to be able to connect to the system with their chips?  He found one that had an expensive-looking camera perched on top of the screen and took a closer look. There was a huge and complex series of windows across its length, which must have been about a meter. It was obviously quicker and easier to manage everything this way, without it taking up your entire visual field. He didn’t know what the processing capacity of the chip was either, but maybe it wasn’t even capable of handling all the data that passed through here.

_Time to act. Every second Victor’s out there, his life’s in danger._

He removed a lab coat from the inner pocket of his jacket, borrowed from Phichit and originally intended for Victor’s use. People would trust someone wearing one of these more readily than they’d trust someone who looked like a soldier, he thought. Off came the hat and the jacket; he was wearing his teal T-shirt underneath. Then he pulled on the lab coat, leaving it unbuttoned as he preferred it.

He was ready to face an audience…if he could find a way to connect to them.  


	75. Chapter 75

_I’d want to educate the public about the Institute, and how they and the government spy on people using their chips. I’d explain about ESP, too. Though I’d have to find a better way than broadcasting over the radio, because most people out there who’d listen would just think I was another nut…_

The words Yuuri had spoken to Victor at the Cloud café in Silverado came to mind as he bent over the screen in front of him. His fingers trembled as he touched it, and he took a calming breath. Yes – there was a manual interface, though that meant he’d have to use a keyboard. He searched for the control panel and brought one up. It was so slow this way, though, as opposed to controlling the chip with a thought. So slow.

He easily found the software that ran the camera on top of the screen. But discovering a way to communicate with the chips using the Cloud was a whole different ballgame. His fingers flew across the screen as he scanned window after window.

ACCESS DENIED.

It looked like it ought to be possible to get deeper into the workings of the Cloud here, from this station. If you knew how to do it. If you had authorization.

ACCESS DENIED.

His fingers began to tremble again, and he could feel sweat breaking out on his brow. Victor should’ve been the one to come in here and do this. Victor was the tech expert, not him. It wasn’t going to work, what they’d planned. And it was going to cost them.

_ACCESS DENIED._

His heart sank and his throat constricted. He gasped a breath, and another one. There were layers of encryption here that would take someone who knew what they were doing a long time to hack; he could see that now – but what else should he have expected? Tears pricked at his eyes, and his vision began to swim. The black tendrils were reaching through his veins, smooth and quick this time, finding him easy prey. He was going to collapse in here, having achieved nothing, and Victor…Victor…

He grabbed the desktop and willed the world to stop spinning. A tear plopped onto the metal surface. _I’m so sorry. So, so sorry…_  

No. He _had_ to keep trying. They’d come too far. If it took his dying breath, he’d do something, even if all it amounted to was the destruction of the equipment in here, though that was surely a last resort. He had to make the risk they’d taken worthwhile; had to make the ends of their lives mean something, if it came to that.

He took another wavering breath and let out a sob as he worked. _Something, anything, please…_

_[Yuuri.]_

The voice cut through his churning mass of thoughts. It seemed as if he’d physically heard it, but he knew it was in his head. Not Victor’s voice. A woman’s.

He couldn’t send anything himself via ESP right now; not when he was struggling to stop a full-blown panic attack. “Grandma?” he whispered, his fingers pausing on the screen.

_[Relax and concentrate.]_

He hung his head and huffed a cynical laugh. His face flushed and a drop of sweat trickled down his cheek. _You can say that. You can say that all you like. They’re nice words, but –_

_[Send your consciousness into the machine.]_

A pause; then, “What?” But there was nothing more. “Send my consciousness into the machine,” he muttered, staring at the screen. “How? I don’t…”

Was that possible with ESP? All he’d ever tried to do with tech involved deceiving or destroying it. He’d never thought to reach out to it benignly. Maybe because the idea was…disturbing. Where would his mind end and the AI begin? What would it be like to join together in some weird way – and, once tangled, could they be untangled?

 _It’s just tech,_ he told himself. _It’s not alive. The Cloud doesn’t even have a personality, not like a Friday._

_We don’t join. I call the shots._

He wasn’t going to get anywhere if he couldn’t relax and concentrate – the first thing his grandmother had told him to do. Somehow, amid the turbulent sea of his worries and the soldiers here with guns and Victor out there and god knew what was happening to him, he had to find…an anchor. Wasn’t that what he’d told Victor to do in the depths of his own panic? What could he conjure for himself now; what calmed him more than anything else?

 _Victor._ Lying in bed next to him on some quiet sunny morning. Snuggling into his warmth, their arms around each other. Hadn’t he been thinking something similar when he’d entered this very room? To look forward to, when they got out of here. Nothing in the world was better than that. The fact that he’d had the chance to experience it at all in his life was something he’d be forever grateful for.

The sinking fear in his gut melted away like snow in a spring thaw, and a happy glow spread through him. He was tempted to question how this could be, given his present circumstances, but decided it was better to just let it happen. Renewed strength and resolve ran through his veins. He could _do_ this. Taking a deep breath, he looked at the screen, then looked beyond it, his mind feeling out, searching. It was new and strange. Like communicating via ESP, it was less accurate and more intuitive than what the physical body could tease out of the components. Ideas and information came to him in flashes. He sensed the nature of the electronic transfer of data within the mechanized brain – logical, direct, essentially unthinking; matter and energy put together to do a series of what were, in essence, fairly simple jobs, albeit many of them simultaneously. Nothing like the complexity of a biological brain. Easy, then, to slip surreptitiously in, surf on the flow, look around for a place to dive…

And oh, he saw it. Did he ever see it. Behind cascading curtains of silver and gold, layer after layer brushed aside as his mind probed further. It had been lurking here, growing fatter and fatter, like some underground leviathan, and they thought it was safe; that they had it under control, so that it only came out to bite as they commanded it to. A bank of data amassed from every person they’d spied on over the chip. This was where they hid it. Yuuri didn’t know how he’d found his way here. But they were going to deeply regret they’d ever done this – he would make sure of it.

And yet there were so many files here; they would take hours – maybe even days – to release. A random sample, then; in the time he had, that should be enough to show people what was going on, and they’d know there was much more hiding under the surface. He decided on the letter “M” and allowed himself to drift on the currents until he was taken there. More encryption. Yuuri pulled it all away – why did you need a key when you could simply remove the entire lock? – and then the information was free, a silver trail flowing out into the shimmering Cloud.

As he watched, savoring the satisfaction of having done this beautiful, truthful thing, a vague awareness seeped into his consciousness of others trying desperately to wrench the system away from him; to stem the damage before it got any worse. This was supposed to be their domain, not his. Yuuri sensed the disturbances they made on the periphery, attempting to override his access, take control remotely, lock him out. Eventually they resorted to cutting the power off to the control room; they were willing to shut down the entire Cloud to stop him, it seemed. But they were too late. His mind had felt its way into this lump of metal and energy, like water saturating a sponge, and that was how it was going to stay; it obeyed him now. They couldn’t prevent him from drawing power to it any more than they could undo the connection he’d made. He allowed the letter “M” to continue its escape for a few more minutes, before deciding it was time to move on to something else. He didn’t want anyone to be distracted by that while he was requesting their attention, and shut it off.     

While maintaining his concentration on and in the computer, he allowed a portion of his consciousness to seep back into the physical world. The room had been enveloped in deep shadow, apart from the glow of the screen in front of him. Wiping the cooling sweat from his face with his sleeve, he looked more closely at the camera on top of it. After a moment, he discovered a way to shine a flat white light on himself, obviously intended to show someone’s face to its best advantage. He adjusted it and activated the software for the camera, then sank his mind deep into the computer again. Thankfully he was used to focusing on more than one task at once, because it was demanding and draining – but he’d never felt so driven at the same time; so certain that he _had_ to do this and make it work. 

The curtains, the layers, the endless flow of light and color, data unquantifiable; he found it again and moved through it, down further still. To the tendrils branching out from it, each as thin as a spider’s thread, each leading to a chip. Millions upon millions, weaving a glittering silver web. Yuuri felt himself gasp at its beauty, and wondered momentarily if this was how an astronaut felt when they looked upon the earth and saw intricate patterns across thousands of kilometers that individuals on the ground could barely conceive of.

Millions of people who had a chip – no doubt wondering why their Cloud access had suddenly been cut off. But it hadn’t; not entirely. It was time to speak to them.

He hadn’t written a speech. Hadn’t rehearsed what he wanted to say, apart from picking the topics he wanted to cover. If he’d done that before he went into a classroom to give a lecture, he’d be a bundle of nerves. Yet it had seemed the right thing to do in this case; as if when the time came, he’d have a better idea of what was needed in the situation. It felt like the words were there now, waiting. He burned to release them.

 _[Grandma, please be with me.]_ His arms loose at his sides, he took a quick breath and mentally switched the camera on, sensing the attention of all those people suddenly focused upon him in surprise.

“My name is Dr. Yuuri Katsuki,” he said in the assured, calm, articulated tone he used for presentations. “I’m in the room where the Cloud is controlled, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The government doesn’t want me to be here, because it doesn’t want you to hear what I have to say. I’m responsible for the release of all the data on people whose last name begins with “M,” though what you’ve seen is only a small portion of what’s stored for that letter and all the others. Please take a minute to save it somewhere safe, like a tablet, while you’re listening. After this broadcast, I urge you to examine that data and think about how much more the government knows about you, your friends and family, everyone you’ve ever met. Politicians. Business leaders and owners. The rich and famous and powerful. Think about what they can _do_ with that information. The ability it gives them to manipulate and blackmail. Maybe you yourself are someone who’s experienced that, or you know someone who has. The people who possess all this information aren’t the ones we’ve elected. They’re _in charge of_ who we’ve elected. Two organizations with access to this databank are the CIA and the Alexander Coughlin Institute in New York City. The first one speaks for itself. I want to tell you more about the second one, and what they both have to do with the chip…”

***

 _Forget the popcorn_ , Crow thought as he saw every single screen turn black and then suddenly flash back on with an image of Yuuri in a lab coat. _What the fuck?_

This, after another fascinating thing had occurred. His chip had suddenly been bombarded with files of information on people with last names that began with “M.” He really wanted to see if that included their half-American half-Bengali president, Aditya Maacher. But before he’d had a chance to get stuck into any of it, the automatic download had stopped, as had every other chip transmission. Then Yuuri’s pretty face. In the middle of his visual field, and in here as the soldiers watched in stunned silence, looking like a bunch of trout on a line.

He’d gotten into the control room. Where was everyone else who’d been in there? It couldn’t have been empty when he’d arrived. Had he stunned them all? Wasn’t anyone trying to get through the door? Where had Nikiforov gone – was he off to the side somewhere, feeding him lines to say? Or just shooting everyone in sight?

The ants really were scurrying around in their nest now. They’d finally worked out who the intruders were. It’d taken them long enough. He could’ve told them, of course, but he hadn’t seen much point; it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference to the glorious trail of destruction the two of them had been leaving in their wake as they penetrated to the heart of the building. How did they get these powers, or the tech that generated them? people were asking. What could they do to stop them?

Well, Crow thought, it looked like his moment had arrived. He felt no loyalty to the sheep he worked for, and had wanted to find out what Katsuki and Nikiforov were up to before he interfered. But he’d seen plenty of the show now, he reckoned, and it really would be irresponsible of him to let them carry on with impunity as they were. They needed to be reminded of who was in charge here before they got too big for their boots.   

He moved with purpose, out the door and through the corridors, skirting around bodies, though some of them were starting to come to, looking dazed. How sweet of them to have put their guns on stun. How fucking saintly.

Yuuri was having a real yak session over the chip, spilling state secrets left, right and center. _You do your thing, amigo, and have fun. But if you think you and Nikiforov are going to be able to waltz out of here when you’re done, you’ve got a little surprise in store._

Near the control room, there was a press of soldiers who were standing around looking like they weren’t sure which way was up and which was down. He could feel Nikiforov’s presence here; he seemed to have pulled his attention away from his blocking activities for now. The corridor was choked full of these useless gonks.

“Let me past; I’m the only one who can stop these two,” he said, elbowing his way through. Most of them obviously didn’t recognize who he was, but seemed to assume he knew what he was doing, and moved aside. Talk with a little authority and the world was your oyster.

He caught wind of a conversation around the corner. English lightly accented with Russian. Nikiforov was saying that all he wanted was for himself and Yuuri to be able to leave peacefully. They hadn’t hurt anyone, he said, and didn’t want to. The arrogant prick. Enough was enough. He nudged as far forward as he could while remaining out of Nikiforov’s sight, then gathered a charge of energy inside his solar plexus and let fly. It wouldn’t be quite as effective when he wasn’t in sight, but he had surprise on his side.

Before anyone else reacted, he whipped around the corner and spotted the Russian plank, who had staggered back against the door behind him with a hand across his stomach, and shot him. He slid to the floor.

“Don’t shoot him again,” Crow barked out, going over to him and grabbing the gun he’d dropped, then searching through his pockets. “He’s still alive; I’m gonna need to interrogate him.” _And find out what that portal was all about, now that you appear to have recovered your memory. You’re gonna tell me if it’s the last thing you do. Which it probably will be._

“How are we supposed to prevent him from escaping?” asked a soldier who joined him. “Who knows what all he can do. Has he got some kind of device on him that – ”

“What he’s been doing hasn’t been caused by any kind of tech,” Crow said dismissively. He found several door jammers, a lighter and a flashlight, but didn’t bother to remove them. The map of the building was more interesting; he took that and shoved it his jacket pocket. “Give him a tranquilizer. Stick him someplace secure and put a guard on him while he’s out. I’m gonna deal with the one in the control room, and then I’ll be back for him.”

He stepped away and tried to open the door, which unsurprisingly was stuck; Yuuri had probably slapped a jammer on it. Well, he’d make short work of that.

The plank was all fired up, whatever he was saying over the chip; Crow had stopped paying attention.

And then all hell broke loose.

***

 _Keep it short and simple,_ Yuuri said to himself as he continued. _There’s no way of knowing how much more time I’ve got in here, or what’s happening on the other side of the door with Victor._

Some people were no doubt already aware, he said, of how much information on them was legally stored, from everywhere they traveled to their political affiliation to the color of the socks they bought; though what they might not know was how the chip was being used as a surveillance device, and how it was live even when they thought they’d turned it off. Audio recordings and transcripts had been released as part of the data on the letter “M.” He apologized for leaking the private information into the public domain, but said he hoped that the awareness it raised would lead to the end of the blatant abuses of freedoms that everyone in the country had a right to.

“But we don’t have to sit and passively wait and hope that this all comes to an end. There’s something we can do to protect ourselves and each other, tonight. By releasing the data that I have, I’ve proved the truth of what I’ve been saying. I hope you’ll go one step further with me and consider the truth of what I’m about to tell you next. It’s how I got into the control room today, and how I bypassed complex layers of encryption and attempts to block my access to the Cloud so that I could speak to you now. I’m powering up this computer and reaching out to you across the network by using something that’s had many names over time: extra-sensory perception, psychic ability, spirit-sight, the sixth sense, cryptesthesia…what you call it doesn’t matter. What _does_ matter is that it’s real. I’ve got it, I’ve met others who do, and I know some of you listening to me now do too, whether you’re aware of it or not…”

He explained a little about what it was like when he was young, developing it and not being believed. How he’d later tried to help others in similar situations who’d reached out to him via ESP – maybe some of them were listening now. That led him on to the Coughlin Institute again, and he explained about the blocking chip and operations and killings, and how they’d attempted to track him and his partner down.

“We’re neuroscientists,” he said. “We, and many others, would be willing and able to study this ability if we were allowed to do so, instead of being hunted by people who feel threatened by the control they’re afraid to lose. We could help others learn how to use it and develop it. In fact, it may be no exaggeration to say that we stand on the verge of a great scientific breakthrough. ESP is _real_ ,” he added, the voice of the calm lecturer beginning to slip into something more heated, “and we can _prove_ it. You can help me with that – right now.”

Yuuri didn’t know where the words were coming from. He would never have considered himself to be a great speechmaker. Perhaps, all this time, he’d been more passionate about these things than he’d consciously realized. At any rate, he was in full flow now, a fire leaping inside of him that he wanted to kindle in his viewers.

“The first step is to throw off the chains we’ve allowed them to bind us with,” he said, leaning over and resting his palms on the desk as he stared intensely at the camera. “If enough people out there with ESP can channel their thoughts and their energy into the network that connects the chips and the Cloud, we can blow this whole thing sky-high. No one will be able to spy on us, and the government will be forced to act immediately. We have the power. I was told by a wise person once that we’re all capable of using a sixth sense to some degree, so even if you don’t think you have one, join in.” He made a fist and held it in front of his chest. “Let’s _show them_ what we can do.”

There was a thump against the door. His stomach twisted in sudden fear – what was happening with Victor? But he couldn’t stop now. Victor wouldn’t want him to, either. As hard as it was – as impossibly hard – he had to force himself to focus on his task. And not just focus, but channel his feelings into it. An enthusiastic advocate for action was going to stir people up more than a dispassionate scientist would, now that the latter had started things off and hopefully laid the foundations. He swallowed, prayed that Victor was OK, and threw himself back into the broadcast.

“We’re all going to send a pulse into the Cloud at the same time and throw it into overload,” he said. Then he explained how to build a ball of energy in the abdomen, and what it should feel like. Different ways it could be visualized. He told his audience to focus on the headquarters of the Cloud here, and the console where he was standing. Aim for that, he said. Imagine destroying it utterly – and along with it, all the information the government had on them and everyone else.

“Destroy their power to manipulate us. If you’re still not sure, allow yourself to have just a moment of faith. Help give us all a better future.” He paused. “I’m going to count from five down to one. On one…” He lowered his voice and sent a look of smoldering determination at the camera. “…we’re going to send out the hottest, brightest fire this country’s ever seen. Take a minute and get ready. Close your eyes if you need to, and focus your energy. Feel it burning inside of you. On one, send it here.” As he began to count, he raised his voice again. “Five…four…three…two… _one!_ ”

Into his mind came the image of a thick gray fuse along which a white sparkling fire licked. He barely noted it before the screen in front of him exploded into flames. But the tsunami of energy kept pressing and building, with nowhere else to go. And Yuuri realized what he needed to do. He gathered it with his mind and contained it as it grew, until it was so hot and strong that it threatened to incinerate him. With momentum continuing behind it, pushing at him, he concentrated with every fiber of his being on knocking the starlike mass back the way it had come, back down the threads of the invisible web, like the biggest home run in history.

It was almost too much. He felt as if he’d been singed over a fire. But somehow he was still here – and he sensed the energy lighting across the network into millions of minds, powerful enough to create a pulse to blow every chip. Like Yuuri himself had done, accidentally, one anxious day.

Only this time, it was everybody. Everybody in the country had a blown chip…and it was going to create havoc.

Yuuri smiled even as he fell to the floor in exhaustion, away from the heat of the burning screen above him. _I did it. We did it. It worked. Yes…I did it._

The tiled floor was cold against his face and hands. Soothing.

_Victor._

He scrambled away from the dying fire and stood up in the dark room, his heart beginning to race again. That was fine, that was good – he needed the adrenaline; this wasn’t over with yet, not by a long shot.

 _[Are you OK?]_ he sent. But this time there was no reply.

He took a breath and felt for Victor’s ESP presence. And oh, thank god, it was still there…but not as near as it was. The worst hadn’t happened, though something had gone wrong or else he’d still be outside the door, able to answer him. Maybe that meant someone else would be trying to get in. What to do?

He’d leaked data into the Cloud to prove that the government had been spying over the chip; hopefully enough people had saved it onto a tablet, as he’d requested, that it would be the talk of the country tomorrow. And enough people had believed what he’d said about ESP to assist him in blowing the entire network of chips. That energy they’d sent had been real, and powerful.

Mission accomplished, it seemed.

There was no time to savor the success just now, however. He had to get out of here and find Victor. It would be foolish to risk the main door. Flickers of yellow and orange flames dimly illuminated the room from the screen that had exploded. The bodies of the people he’d stunned were still motionless. He carefully stepped over one on his way to the side door. How did you turn these jammers off? It must be easy. Maybe you were just supposed to pull them off the wall. It was the other side, after all, that he’d been trying to keep locked. He reached out and gave the black disc with the flashing red light a tug, but it held fast. So what else –

There was a small explosion from the direction of the main door; a bright flash of silver sparks. The door jammer. But how – ?

 _Never mind._ Yuuri concentrated, gun at the ready, and disabled the jammer in front of him in similar fashion. The door slid open. As he expected, there was a group of soldiers waiting in front of him, arrayed as a phalanx. They hadn’t thought of anything new, then. He phase-shifted their fire and stunned them as before. Three up, three down. Or however many there were. He began to step over their bodies, gun poised. Victor –

An agonizing pain ripped through his abdomen. He cried out and lurched forward, feeling like he was going to throw up, almost dropping his gun. As if he didn’t already know what the cause of it was, a harsh voice shouted his name from the control room.

Crow.


	76. Chapter 76

_How the hell. How…how could he know? How is he here?_

_Fuck._

Yuuri abandoned his efforts at evading the cameras. There were no chips to block. No one firing at him right now, though he had to be prepared for that. He focused on shielding himself from Crow’s attacks and sprinted down the corridor, his midsection stitched and throbbing.

_Please don’t tell me that’s what happened to Victor. That he ran into Crow, and…and…_

But the main door, the one Crow had come through, was where Victor had been.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._

_Be calm,_ he told himself. _You have to be calm. Focus, focus._

Victor was still alive. All hadn’t been lost.

Shit, this was a long corridor.

He sensed it, but almost didn’t turn around in time. Crow behind him. Each aimed a gun at the other, and both guns exploded in the same instant. Yuuri tossed the hot useless weapon away and quickly gathered a ball of energy inside him, flinging it at Crow with everything he had, every defensive thought he could muster. _I’ll be damned if you’re going to stop me and Victor this time. If you keep after me, I will flay you._

Crow did the same. But the shielding was helping this time, and while it still felt like a punch to the gut, it didn’t cause Yuuri to double up. His own eyes widened in surprise, however, as _Crow_ bent over, looking like he couldn’t believe what was happening. Gunfire erupted from a group of soldiers who had been following Crow, and Yuuri phase-shifted it, turning to run again, his lab coat swirling around his legs. Victor had given him his old white stun gun back, and he’d stashed it in a pants pocket; he fished it out now and held it at the ready.

_Did…did I really do that? To Crow?_

_No way._

_Jesus._

Crow was trying to contact him via ESP now, like an unwelcome knock on the door. _Whatever you have to say, I’m not letting you in. Forget it._

Turning a corner, Yuuri saw another long dim corridor ahead. There was no one in front of him, but those behind would catch up soon enough. He felt out with his mind for Victor. Somewhere…somewhere to the left. Not close by. That didn’t matter at the moment, anyway; he had to shake his pursuers first. One pursuer in particular.

Something invisible scratched at his mind, followed by a white flash like a migraine. Yuuri batted it away, his eyes watering, and poured his concentration into shielding. He was bound to run into more soldiers soon. He could handle those, perhaps – without Crow attacking him as well.

There was nothing else for it. He would have to make a stand.

He came to a halt and turned, waiting; pressing his lips together in determination, fingering his stun gun.

When Crow appeared, they again exchanged psychic punches to the gut. He felt the pain acutely, but forced himself to think past it; Crow staggered against the wall. While he was distracted, Yuuri attempted to stun him; but it seemed he and Victor weren’t the only ones who could neutralize gunfire, and it had no effect. Quickly he stunned the soldiers behind Crow – and then his gun exploded into sparks. As the pain in his own abdomen radiated through his body, he gasped several breaths. 

He darted a glance around him to make sure there weren’t any doors or side corridors from which more attackers could emerge, but they were in a narrow shadowy hallway that had a faintly musty smell, as if it wasn’t often used. The loss of the stun gun was a handicap – but it was possible he could disable a soldier well enough to take their gun away from them, later. Once he’d dealt with Crow. Somehow.

“Did you two think taking the chip out was worth your lives?” Crow called, his voice rough; there was none of the teasing suaveness in it that Yuuri remembered. “That’s what it’s gonna cost you. It’s already cost Victor’s. I shot him.”

“You’re lying,” Yuuri called back. He launched another ball of energy at Crow, who reeled backward – but not before Yuuri felt one land inside his own midsection, already raw and sore. He grunted and leaned against the wall, wrapping his arms around his middle.

“The fuck I am. He’s dead, like you’re gonna be soon.”

“I can feel him. I’m not stupid. I can feel you, too. You’re not hiding.”

“Neither are you. Well aren’t we one happy little family. Shame you gonks won’t join my side. We could have a great time together.”

“Shame you decided to go and kill people for a living,” Yuuri muttered, gathering his energy again. It was getting harder to do this. He felt like a boxer approaching round ten.

“OK…you’re right. Victor’s alive. He’s waiting for my tender care. How about if I tell you everything I’m gonna do to him while he sits there in front of me, completely helpless. You think it was bad when I got to him in California? That was _nothing_ , Yuuri. That was a warm-up. He’s gonna suffer because of this niff prank you both pulled tonight – and you can blame yourself, honey, because no one else made you come here.”

Yuuri’s mind filled with red. Blazing, defiant, _raging._ He turned his head toward Crow, his gaze searing, and lashed at him with the energy he’d built up. Crow took several tripping steps backward and dry-heaved. Almost without pause, Yuuri attacked again. And again. The punches had less power behind them, dealt in such quick succession, but the final one knocked Crow to the floor. Yuuri heard the breath huff out of him as he fell, and gave himself a moment to prepare another onslaught, his hands trembling in fury at Crow’s taunts. Crow rolled onto his stomach, gasping, and Yuuri stared into two dark hate-filled eyes, then felt another punch to his gut, though all it did was knock the wind out of him.

“Don’t you dare lay a hand on him,” Yuuri spat.

“Or what?” Crow breathed, trying to lift himself up. “He’s fucked no matter what happens between us here…They’ve got him. He’ll be lucky if he lives to see the light of day…Suck it up, sunshine.”

God, Yuuri wanted to hurt him. He imagined claws – like he’d felt raking at his mind – making sharp scratches slowly down Crow’s face. Deep and stinging.

A high-pitched cry echoed through the hall. Crow clapped a hand to his cheek, and when he pulled it away, he looked at his palm in horror; a streak of crimson ran across it, mirroring a vertical one down his face. Yuuri’s jaw dropped and he stared in disbelief.

_[Behind you.]_

Yuuri whirled around at the sound of his grandmother’s voice, concentrating on phase-shifting any gunfire coming his way – a hair’s-breadth too late.

The last thing he saw was a white explosion, before darkness claimed him.               

***

Chris watched the entrance door a while longer, but it was quiet out here, and nothing moved but the tree branches soughing in the light breeze. No one was going in or out. No vehicles passing. This was like one of those nine-to-five office centers that only had life in it while the workers sat at their desks. There was no reason, of course, why that schedule was necessary for the vast majority. They should be able to do a lot of work over their chips at home. But from the few – albeit short-lived – desk jobs Chris had had himself, he knew that employers wanted to keep an eye on people; to own them enough to corral them all in one place at the same time and claim it was “networking” or “team-building” or whatever silly lingo was being used these days. He himself had decided he’d have none of it. OK, existence got a little precarious at times. But it was never, ever dull.

He wondered if he’d have a job left after tonight. Not that he technically had one at the moment anyway, being between assignments and acting gigs. But he couldn’t say he’d miss the chip, or what the government did with it. Actually…with that gone, there might even be _more_ work for him, because the spying game would suddenly be a whole lot more important.

But…maybe he was losing his taste for reporting people’s secrets. Did doing that make him any better than the chip? _Good question, Giacometti. Very good question._

Could he make a living just from acting? He’d never been all that serious about it before. Sometimes he liked the parties and the socializing and the sex more than the going-on-stage part. But then, sometimes the going-on-stage part was better. Maybe if he was lucky enough to rope a rich boyfriend, it’d work.

That cute techie amigo of Yuuri’s had caught his eye. How much did they pay people like that at the university? Not a lot, would be his guess. He was pretty young, too, and probably on some low rung of the career ladder. Still…

He stood for a while longer, watching and waiting. They hadn’t felt able to place time estimates on anything, and there was no way for Yuuri and Victor to contact him out here, so he had no idea was going on, and he’d expected that. As used as he was to this kind of thing, however, Chris felt himself getting antsy. They were big-hearted people, both of them, trying to do something touchingly noble. They were willing to die for it in there, even, which had astounded him; though knowing Victor as he did, maybe it shouldn’t have been so surprising after all. If anyone ever championed a cause and worked tirelessly to make it a success, it was him. Finding out how the Institute had manipulated him all those years must have been one incredibly bitter pill to swallow. In a way it had been for himself, too, on Victor’s behalf. He was a good, kind jack who didn’t deserve that. And Yuuri seemed to have been cut from the same cloth, even if he had some hot-headed short-sighted tendencies. That spirited nature of his, hidden behind quiet brown eyes, more than made up for it, if you asked him.

And what was he, Agent Giacometti, doing while they were in there? What courage and conviction was he displaying? He thought about it. To be fair, he _had_ given them some pretty useful gear, without which they would not have been able to enter the building. They had asked, and he had provided, and risked a fair bit in being discovered assisting them if anyone had raised a stink about the equipment he’d taken. Especially the uniforms. And he was waiting here now, wasn’t he? Prepared to cover them when they came out. People might shoot at him, and if they hit him, he didn’t have some flink way of making it harmless.

They’d been in there a while, though. Even with their ESP, they’d be up against armed soldiers, two against god knew how many. In his honest opinion, he didn’t expect them to come back out. They’d be captured or killed; it was only a question of whether they’d be able to complete their mission first. And even _they_ hadn’t been entirely sure what that was. No, Chris’s hopes weren’t high.

_So what am I doing standing out here?_

_Saving my own skin._

_Wow, I’m a real hero._

They’d agreed, though, that he’d stay here. Yuuri and Victor had been fine with that. He sure as hell was, too.

But he _was_ authorized to go inside. There was nothing stopping him.

Unless he ended up in the middle of a gun battle. How likely was that? Anyway, he’d probably hear it before he ran into it. And he did have a gun of his own; though if he started shooting at personnel in the building, even if it was only to stun them, he could probably kiss his career and his freedom goodbye, if not his actual life.

Well shit, he couldn’t just keep standing here, could he? They said curiosity killed the cat; but if that was true, he’d had a lot more than nine lives already. Surely there’d be no harm in having a peek. Yes, that was what he’d do.

Keeping an eye on his surroundings, he emerged from the park, trotted across the road, and approached the door. The sensor beeped him in, and he was soon in a corridor with the door closing behind him. Simple.

So…where to? He hadn’t thought to get himself a map of the building, because he hadn’t intended to enter it. It had been a while since he’d been here, and he hadn’t exactly made an effort to memorize the layout. Well, he’d just carry on along this corridor for a start and see where it led. Follow his nose.

It was eerily quiet here, apart from the background hum of something that might have been the heating system. OK, it was nighttime, but it wasn’t that late, and surely there should be a few people hanging around. Where were they?

He stopped and thought. It would be handy to stay invisible from the security cameras; but maybe now that he was here in the building, he could risk opening his chip up to the Cloud. They’d know he was here, but so what? If Yuuri was able to do his broadcast, or disrupt the function of the chip somehow, he’d find out instantly. Maybe he already had, and he himself didn’t know because he’d been blocking everything. Though he hadn’t had much choice while he’d been outside. Lurking in a park across from an important building like this would’ve looked a tad suspicious, and drawn attention where it wasn’t wanted.

He adjusted the device on the lapel of his jacket so that he was connected to the Cloud again. Everything seemed normal at the moment. He peered around corners and through doors as he walked, in no particular hurry. The place was as quiet as the grave. Actually, he’d never much cared for that saying.

Then, suddenly, he was bombarded with files of information on people whose last name started with “M.” Where the spatch was _that_ coming from? It had to be the Cloud, but how, why? Was it Yuuri or Victor doing that? Ma. Maabarot. Maabo. Maacher. Wait – yes, Aditya Maacher. _Holy fuck._ Chris opened the file and began to browse. And… _holy, holy fuck._ If this stuff was true, and it was being broadcast over the Cloud, the country was soon going to be in an almighty uproar. It _had_ to have been one of his two amigos who’d done this.

Any remaining doubt in his mind was soon dispelled when everything on his chip crashed, and a moment later Yuuri’s image flickered onto his visual field.

_My name is Dr. Yuuri Katsuki. I’m in the room where the Cloud is controlled…_

Chris silently thanked him for that piece of information, though he could’ve guessed it himself. Maybe this meant everything was going according to plan, and he could go back outside and wait.

But where was Victor? Was he there with him? Were they both safe? Of course they weren’t; everybody would be doing their level best to get Yuuri out of there and stop his broadcast. Though – Chris felt his heart swell with satisfaction – some major damage had already been done. He wondered what the president would be saying about it all tomorrow. Soon-to-be ex-president, from the look of things.

Deciding to remain in the building for now, he continued to poke around the corridors, feeling a bit bolder once he’d discovered no one was interested in paying any attention to him. The first couple of soldiers he’d passed had been frozen where they stood, staring into space, no doubt watching Yuuri, as he was himself. Whoever would’ve thought he had this in him? He was using the “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” sort of tone. That was an old one, though. And he _was_ actually a doctor. In fact, he sounded more like one now than he ever had when Chris had spoken with him.

_Go on, Yuuri, sock it to ’em._

If he could find the control room, maybe he could be available outside of it to help Yuuri once this was all done. Or maybe he could find Victor, if the two of them had split up like they’d planned. He peeked through windows in hallways and doors where he could, though he mostly just saw dark rooms. Where was everyone?

And what was Yuuri talking about now? Gone was the reassuring bedside manner, and in its place was some jumped-up sports coach giving his team a half-time pep talk. He hadn’t seen _this_ side of Yuuri before now either, though he was already familiar with the dig-your-heels-in stubborn-as-a-mule attitude. He thought he could see the appeal of this jack to Victor. Just when you thought you knew him, he did something to surprise you. Victor had always said he liked surprises.

He turned a corner and saw a trio of soldiers trotting toward him. Trying to think of a good story to feed them for why he was there, he watched them come to a confused halt as he heard Yuuri count down from five – and seconds after he shouted _one_ , he felt a little spark pass through him, like a static electric charge after you’d walked across a carpet and touched an object. Then his chip was down. It looked like the soldiers’ were, too.

“Get backup, get backup.”

“Chip backup’s not working.”

“No one can knock out the Cloud. The mainframe here goes down, the one in Williamsburg goes online.”

“Ma’am, I think maybe it’s our chips that are damaged.”

The woman who seemed to be the leader fussed for another minute, then decided they would continue on to the control room. They ran past Chris as if he weren’t even there. He began to follow them, but knew he had to keep his distance, and slowed down when he decided that running like this might just call attention to him. Besides, if Yuuri had done what he’d come to do, which seemed likely, he’d be out of that control room as fast as could be. How he’d accomplish it, though, when these soldiers were going there to meet him, was anyone’s guess.

_Maybe I wouldn’t be much use either, if I was just standing in the audience outside while he was under siege in there. And I still don’t know where Victor is._

_I should’ve come in here sooner._

But what could he have done?

What should he do now?

He thought about it while he walked along, passing a soldier standing outside a door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw through the window in the door a figure lying on a cot. It would barely have registered on him, apart from the fact that the person, in uniform but hatless, had strikingly fair hair with long bangs.

He carried on past the soldier as if he had somewhere important to go. Then, once he’d put several meters between them, he whirled around and stunned him. The soldier crumpled to the floor, and Chris frisked through his pockets and retrieved his gun. Then he tried the door. Locked, of course. He stood in front of the sensor, but it didn’t appear to register him as having authorization to enter. Mind you, it was questionable what if anything would work in this building at the moment, with all the chips frazzed.

There was only one thing for it, then. Taking several quick steps back, he aimed his gun at the control panel at the side of the door and fired. Blue sparks erupted from it, and Chris dashed forward, prying the metal open, then pulled the soldier’s body inside the room and closed the door behind him. That might buy him a little more time, but maybe not much, if anyone noticed the damage to the door or looked through the window. There was nothing in here he could use to fasten something like a jacket across the glass. He hoped they were too busy running around like headless, or chipless, chickens to be very concerned; but this was Victor – one of the intruders. They’d be coming for him sooner rather than later for sure.

Chris dashed over to him. No gunshot wounds that he could see. Placing his fingers against his neck, he felt a pulse, though it was weak and slow. “Victor,” he said urgently, giving his cheek a slap and his shoulder a shake. No response; not so much as an eyelid flicker. He shook his shoulder a little harder, but it was no use. He’d been tranquilized; Chris recognized the signs. You couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks, it seemed; it was one of the CIA’s weapons of choice. And because of that, he habitually carried the antidote for several different kinds of drug in a small kit. It would’ve been easy to use one of them on Victor that day Yuuri had gotten him out of the Institute; but because he’d lost his memory, it had seemed sensible to let him stay sedated for as long as possible. Now, however, the opposite was the case. Chris took the kit out, selected a tiny injector with the antidote for the most common drug they tended to use, and pricked Victor’s neck with it. “Sorry, amigo. Little bee sting. I guess you’ll hardly feel it in the state you’re in.”

His heart did a flip when Victor began to stir, and he put his kit away and looked down at him. “Hey there. Wake up. We’ve gotta get out of here before someone comes in and finds us.”

“Where am I?” Victor asked, his words heavily slurred as he clapped a hand to his bangs and tried clumsily to rake them back. It reminded Chris so vividly of a few memorable nights on the town they’d had that he would’ve laughed if they hadn’t been risking their lives by lingering here like his.

“It’s me – Chris. I came into the building to see if you jacks were OK. Someone tranquilized you, stuck you in this room, and put a guard on you.”

Victor’s brow wrinkled and he groaned as he tried to sit up. Chris helped him. “Chris…so sleepy still. I…Yuuri.” He forced his eyes open and looked at him. “Where’s Yuuri?”

“He sent the broadcast. Everybody’s chip’s blown. I don’t know what happened to him after that. While I was going down the corridor, I spotted you in here. We’ve gotta get you out.”

“No…I need to find Yuuri…”

“You look like you’re struggling, amigo. What they gave you must’ve been pretty strong. It’ll be a good idea to let it wear off before you try running around this place and taking on a bunch of soldiers at once. I gave you an antidote to it, but it still needs to leave your system.”

Victor made a frustrated huff and closed his eyes again. “Head’s swimming. I…can’t locate Yuuri. He should have…an ESP signal. I don’t know if it’s there.”

“Right now, I’d be surprised if you could count all five fingers on your hand. Come on, Victor, I woke you up for a reason. If we’re caught in here – ”

“Maybe he got outside while you’ve been in here. But I should be able to feel him…”

“Try again in a while is all I can say,” Chris told him as he went over to the stunned soldier, pulling off his hat. He returned to Victor and gave it to him, along with the laser gun he’d taken. “Put the hat on; that hair of yours’ll get you recognized in a split second. I’m assuming they took your gun, too, so here.” He handed it over. “Don’t fire it, though, if you’re too woozy to aim it. Hey,” he added, “this kinda reminds me of that time we hooked up with those drag queens from _Kinky Boots_ and – ”

“Oh god,” Victor moaned, holding a hand to his forehead.

“OK, maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring that up. Get the hat on so we can vamoose.”

Victor did as he was instructed and stood up from the cot, wobbling. Chris caught him by the shoulder. “Jesus. I – I’d give you another shot of the antidote, but it could put your heart rate up too much. Yuuri’d have my head on a plate if I killed you or anything. I guess this means you won’t be doing any of that ammo-dodging stuff. Maybe that’ll be OK, if you keep your hat pulled low. When I came in here, everyone was panicking about their chips being blown, so it’s possible we’ll be able to slip by, if we’re lucky.”

“Chris, I’ve got to find Yuuri.”

“Are you picking up his signal yet?”

“No.”

“Well we can’t stay here. Come on.” He stepped over the unconscious soldier and peered out the window; not that it was much help. From his limited field of view, he couldn’t see anyone outside. When he opened the door, the corridor was clear. He gestured for Victor to follow, and they began a purposeful walk with Chris in the lead. Purposeful on his part; though when he looked behind him, Victor still appeared half-drunk. But he was keeping up, which was the important thing.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Victor asked him.

“I can sort of remember, but not a hundred percent. Are you in any condition to help me out? Have you got the map with you?”    

Victor stopped and checked his pockets. “They must’ve taken it.”

“You’d better not go in front of me; people might recognize you. Just…if you think I’m going wrong, gimme a shout, OK?”

“All right.”

“What happened to you, anyway?” Chris asked quietly as they went along.

Victor gave him a brief summary. Chris wanted to whistle in admiration, but kept himself in check. “You against an army, huh? Whoa cow, that must’ve been something.”

“I wish I could remember what happened in the end. Something hit me and it hurt. Then there was a flash and I blacked out. Next thing I knew, you were looking at me.”

“Huh.”

“Did Yuuri say anything to you, or – or anything in the broadcast, about what he was going to do next?”

“’Fraid not. Safest thing to do for now’s probably to get outside, where you can recover and no one’s gonna chase us.”

They negotiated the maze of corridors without incident; the few soldiers they passed were busy going elsewhere and barely seemed to notice them. Victor told him several times where to turn, and eventually they were near the entrance. When Chris peered carefully around the corner, however, he saw four soldiers standing near the main door, and quickly whipped back around the corner. When Victor raised an eyebrow, he held up four fingers. Victor stood close and whispered into his ear.

“I’m going to try to take out their guns from here, if I can. If it works, help me stun them, as fast as you can.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Chris whispered back.

Victor just blinked and said nothing. He seemed to have regained much, of not all, of his coordination, which was encouraging. Chris watched as he stood with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. The next moment, there was a series of explosions and surprised cries. Victor leaped into the entrance hall and Chris followed at his heels; they each stunned two soldiers in quick succession. Then the control panel next to the door erupted into sparks, and Victor began to pry the door open.

“I wouldn’t have suggested any of this if these soldiers’ chips were working,” Chris said, giving him a hand. “At least no one should know you got out until they wake up.”

Soon the door was open far enough for them to pass through, and they closed it behind them again, then made sure no one was around before dashing across the street to the little park. They stood in silence for several minutes, each lost in thought. For his part, Chris was considering how close to death he’d come. Any of those soldiers might have fired on him. And Victor really had needed his help. It seemed he’d done a few good deeds for the day, after all. But there was one of their party left unaccounted for; Chris had been hoping he might be waiting for them here, but there was no sign of him. He knew Victor wouldn’t be happy about that, and it turned out he was right.

“Where _is_ he?” Victor muttered, his brow wrinkled. “He’s not answering me when I call, and I still can’t feel him.”

“It could be the tranquilizer, Victor.”

He shook his head. “I was almost OK before we left the building. The night air out here seems to have done the rest. I’m awake now, but…nothing. If he’s somewhere in the building, I should be able to sense it.”

Chris thought he’d better ask, though he dreaded the answer. “What does that mean, exactly?”

There was a pause; then Victor replied, “If he’s been captured, he could’ve been taken somewhere else. He’d have to be unconscious not to answer me; we can communicate no matter where we are. I don’t know how likely that is. If he’s still in there, he could be shielding – though he knows how to let me through while he’s blocking everything else out. The last option I’m not even going to mention.”

“We can wait here a while, but eventually they’re going to come out and start looking for you. We won’t want to be right across the street when that happens.”

“I’m not leaving Yuuri behind,” Victor said firmly. “Do whatever you want, Chris, but if he’s in there, I’m not going anywhere.”

“No,” Chris said quietly, “I’m not going to leave you two, either. What do you think I am?”

Victor darted a glance at him, then fixed his eyes back on the entrance door. “I think you’re a good friend,” he said softly. “Thank you for coming in after me.”

“No problem, amigo.”

The night breeze blew. They stood silent watch.

“Yuuri, baby, please…please be OK,” Chris heard Victor whisper. Then he took a shaky breath and said no more.


	77. Chapter 77

The first thing Yuuri was conscious of was a faint buzzing noise. Someone’s ESP signal…? No, his ears were physically picking this up. What…

Then it all came back to him with a jolt. How he’d fallen in the middle of a confrontation with Crow. Where was he now; what was happening?

His eyes shot open, and immediately he saw two things that sent his heart into his throat.

The first was some kind of rectangular blue laser-cage tightly surrounding him; he was sitting in a high-backed hard metal chair that had been placed about half a meter away from a wall. The buzzing was coming from the grid lines, the edges of which shimmered faintly. He was sealed in on all sides, right down to the floor; the squares were too small to safely pass a hand through.

The second was Crow standing outside of the cage, leaning against a counter of some kind, staring at him. They were in what appeared to be a large closet or a small storeroom; there were gray-painted cupboards above and below the counter, and a harsh white light above.

 _[Are you OK?]_ Yuuri sent, trying to contain his alarm. No answer. He couldn’t feel Victor’s ESP presence, either. “Where are we?” he asked Crow in a flat voice.

“Not far from where you got stunned a little while ago. You – ”

“Where’s Victor?”

Crow looked annoyed, but then he smirked. “I don’t like being interrupted, Doctor. You seem to have a one-track mind.”

“Answer me.”

Crow’s eyes widened and he huffed a laugh. “ _I’m_ the one asking the questions here. You’re lucky I’ve found some patience, after what you did out in the corridor.”

Yuuri looked more closely at his face on the other side of the glowing blue grid, and saw a long red scratch down the side. He hadn’t imagined it, then. He wondered when he ought to try to attack again, and how advantageous it would be while he was caged like this. And where was Victor; what had happened to him? A shudder passed through him, and he swallowed.

“Now. This cage.” Crow came forward and his fingers glided above the top like a magician’s. “It’s obviously here to make sure you don’t have any thoughts about trying to get out. You touch it, you get fried.”

Yuuri shrank back involuntarily, his hands gripping the arm rests of the chair. But he continued to stare back at Crow defiantly.

Then an idea came to him. He’d gotten good at phase-shifting laser-gun fire. Could he…phase-shift this cage? It was far bigger than anything he’d worked on, but…what did he have to lose? It either worked or it didn’t. And if it did, he’d be on Crow before he knew what hit him.

“There are soldiers outside the door, for your information,” Crow was telling him. “Not that they’d pose a problem for you. The people who run this building were kind enough to give me some time with you in here when I asked for it. They’re all wondering what the fuck to do about the chips you blew. I have to say, that was some impressive destruction. In fact, I’d like to thank you for that. The chip’s always been a pain in the ass anyway, as far as I’m concerned. Most of my people don’t use them, but it came with the job.”

While Crow talked, Yuuri poured all his concentration into trying to phase-shift the cage. But he didn’t seem to be having any effect. It felt too big, and…and _dense_ on top of it, and there was too much energy resisting him. Trying to make it transparent was like trying to lift a tank or punch a hole in a cement wall with a bare fist. It wasn’t a matter of putting just a little more effort into it or needing a touch more strength. There was simply no way it was going to work.

_Shit._

What was generating the cage? If it was a device of some kind, he could try disabling it. But he needed to know what and where it was. Maybe it wasn’t even in this room. Crow wasn’t holding anything. There was nothing on the counter, which he’d gone back to leaning on.

His options were rather thin on the ground, Yuuri realized.

 _Shit._ He felt a prickle of sweat along his hairline.

“You know,” Crow said, eyeing him, “there was a time when I honestly hoped you’d have the sense to want to learn from me, and be friendly.” He sighed. “The pleasures we could’ve had together. I tried to show you some.” He added with a dismissive chuckle, “Stupid of me. I should’ve known better.” His voice grew harsher as he carried on, his eyes glittering. “You kicked me out of your apartment. Then you did other…unpleasant things to me, and you seem determined to keep it up. I can’t say I’m very happy about that. In fact, I’m downright _pissed_ at what you did to my face, amigo.” He touched his cheek briefly, where the scratch streaked down, then gave Yuuri a look full of malice. “To pay you back for every single goddamn _insult_ , I’m gonna make you _hurt_. The soldiers out there, they’ve been ordered to ignore any noises coming from in here…including screams.”

Yuuri closed his eyes, feeling sick.

“But first,” Crow continued, “you’re gonna tell me everything I want to know about that portal you disappeared into, and came out of. How did Nikiforov open it? What did you do in there? What is it?”

Yuuri flung the energy he’d been gathering at Crow, and watched him bend over with a sharply expelled breath. His head whipped around, long hair billowing, face screwed up in anger, and Yuuri felt a punch in the gut in return, despite his shielding. He let out a small cry, his head knocking against the back of the chair. They attacked each other several more times in quick succession, until they were both panting and hugging their arms against their stomachs.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish, since you’re stuck inside that cage,” Crow rasped. “I can’t say I’m surprised, though. You’ll only make my job easier in the end by wearing yourself out. You really think you can beat me?”

“I did in the corridor,” Yuuri muttered between breaths.

“You took me by surprise,” Crow snapped. “That’s all. Won’t happen again.” He paused. “Tell me about the portal. Now.”

In response, Yuuri sent another ball of energy at him. He heard Crow issue a snarl, and white-hot pain seared through his brain. He yelled, tears pricking at his eyes; but he forced himself to concentrate through it, to extend his shield and push the energy out and away, and was left with a raw ache like the tail end of a migraine. Ignoring it, and harnessing the anger the pain had caused, he imagined claws again, raking down Crow’s back.

This time it was Crow who cried out, and he lunged forward with the seeming intent to physically attack Yuuri through the cage. As if remembering at the last minute that the beams could injure him as well, however, he backed away to the counter again with an unblinking glare. “I’ll teach you to try shit like that with me,” he said in a low voice.

Yuuri suddenly felt his throat constricting as if he were having an anxiety attack; but there was a _pressure_ to it, coming from without rather than within. He gulped at the air, struggling to fill his lungs.

“See how you like that, pretty boy,” Crow mouthed as he concentrated. “You’re seriously annoying me.”

Yuuri gasped and wheezed. But as before, his consciousness managed to cut through the pain and push the energy away, opening his windpipe back up. He coughed and heaved several breaths, feeling tremors pass through him. Fighting Crow as well as he was, on top of what he’d done in the control room, had gone a long way toward sustaining his courage and resolve. But he could feel them trickling away, little by little. Especially when he wondered how, or if, he’d get out of here, and what was happening to Victor. An intense longing surged through him for the man who might just as well have been thousands of kilometers away right now. Even in the midst of his fear and pain, he saw his face perfectly in his mind – his smile, his blue eyes – and missed him. And yet he could feel it somehow giving him strength, too.

Crow folded his denim-clad arms across his chest and stared at him. “Be as stubborn as you like, Yuuri. I’ve got all night. We could’ve been doing this over at the Institute, if I’d been there during your little break-in. Nice of you both to come over here and see me instead.” He paused. “You know, I should’ve thought to make sure I had you side by side in here, each in your own cage – ”

“You’d be unconscious by now if you’d tried.”

Crow laughed. “No. I think you overestimate yourself. Or I could’ve had soldiers with me too, just to even things out a little; makes no difference. One of you could’ve watched while I went to work on the other one. Listened to his screams. Or maybe that’d turn you on, I don’t know. But me, Yuuri – I’d _love_ it. And if you won’t answer my questions, maybe he would…if he still can. I guess maybe it’s not too late to – ”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes in fury and lashed out with a surge of energy. Crow’s arms flew to clutch his stomach, but with an angry grimace he sent the retaliatory attack Yuuri expected. A hot ball of energy – which he swung at and hit straight back to its sender, causing him to yell out in surprise and pain. Yuuri’s eyes widened with the realization – it had worked with blowing the chips; why hadn’t he thought about doing the same thing with Crow? – and he went on the offensive, sending wave after wave of debilitating pain.

_You wanted to torture me._

_You wanted me to watch while you tortured Victor._

_See how you like a taste of your own medicine, you sick bastard._

Crow was hanging on to the counter, his body sagging. But he was far from finished, sending more balls of energy at Yuuri; they were weaker, however, and he easily batted them back while continuing his assault, a heady triumph flaming through him, driving him on. He caught a glimpse of fear and amazement in Crow’s eyes – before he collapsed to the floor and lay still.

Yuuri heard the buzzing of the blue grid and his own deep, ragged breaths. _I did that. Me._ He resisted the crazy urge to laugh.

No – he wouldn’t gloat. The whole business was grim. Now, if he could just locate the source of power to the cage…

As he scanned the room, it seemed to grow darker, and his shoulders drooped. He supposed it was no wonder after everything he’d done tonight; the exhaustion must be catching up with him. Could he explode a piece of tech if he couldn’t see it and didn’t know where – or even what – it was? It seemed to be the only option he had. He’d have to try to reach out with his mind and see.

But the room was darker still, now, as if someone were gradually dimming a lightbulb; his arms a leaden weight. When he tried to explore the room with his mind, he discovered it was difficult to concentrate. Movement, thought…thick, heavy…so tired…

He felt squeezed; constricted. As if he were trying to climb into an impossibly small box. But his throat wasn’t tightening again. Nothing in his body was.

_What’s happening to me?_

He closed his eyes, feeling his chest rise and fall with his quickening breaths. And in his mind he saw a flash of whirling, sparkling blue. It lived…and it danced. Everything he thought and felt; everything he _was_ , was contained in its depths.

But a dark cloud of dust or soot was coalescing, wrapping around it, growing, choking off its light. Like a figure skater pulling their arms in during a spin, the pressure was building, tightening, pressing. It was bearing down on him, and he shrank back in the chair, though it offered no relief.

“You’re strong, I’ll give you that,” he heard Crow breathe hoarsely, as if from far away. “But guess what. There’s more to spirit-sight than that, Yuuri.” He coughed several times, then carried on. “I’ve been doing this for years – for _years._ And when I met you not that long ago, you hardly knew how to do shit. I told you, I could’ve taught you so much. Well, I’m gonna teach you now, pretty boy.” Yuuri heard his voice rise in volume. His eyes were still squeezed shut, however, and couldn’t seem to orient himself. “You’re gonna learn the hard way. I’m gonna shred your mind ’til you’re barely human anymore. You’ll be a husk. Then I’ll tie a bow around your neck and send you back to your lover.”

Yuuri shivered and forced his eyes open, but the room seemed to have grown impossibly dark, despite the fact that the overhead light was still on. Beyond the grid, Crow was a shadow among darker shadows, on his feet again. Yuuri had never consciously stopped shielding, but no matter how hard he tried to push the attack away, it was around him and _in_ him, intangible and penetrating. He tried to retaliate; to send another ball of energy, to scratch, to wound. But nothing seemed to be able to escape through the smothering cloud shrinking inward, unceasing and merciless. He gripped the arms of the chair, gritted his teeth and cried out, his eyes watering.

“Why are you doing this?” he managed to say, though it hurt to move his mouth.

“Because I can. Because you’re so very worth it, Yuuri. Besides…you’ve seen things in me that I’d rather no one knew about, and I don’t like that. It makes me uncomfortable. You’re going to forget about those…and a lot more besides.”

Yuuri _did_ feel his throat constricting now; but it was the familiar sensation of icy panic shooting through his veins, numbing, incapacitating. He trembled as tears streaked down his cheeks. Everywhere, all over, he was being squeezed, choked, crushed. Trapped with no escape. He screamed.

Crow breathed in, loud and deep. “I can feel your fear like a drug,” he sighed out.

Yuuri’s skull felt like it was going to cave in. Nowhere to hide from the pain. Crow could easily shoot him. He almost wanted him to, to end this. More tears seeped out as the pressure bands tightened further still.

 _Victor._ It was almost a silent goodbye. He would never, ever leave him. Not willingly. Not like this. He’d fought with every last bit of strength he had left. But it hadn’t been enough…

 _No. Not like this,_ he thought through a haze of pain.

_Grandmother…_

_[Call your friends.]_

He gave a start, not having expected an answer. It pulled him, just a little, back into the light.

 _Victor…he isn’t answering…I can’t find him…_ The bands tightened and he lost his concentration and cried out again, his head knocking against the chair back. His vision had gone blank. There was only red agony, knifing deep, demanding to claim him completely.

He must have been speaking Victor’s name aloud, because Crow said, “Don’t be pathetic. You know he can’t help you now. If he’s even alive and awake – I stunned him, so I’m not sure – he can’t hear or detect you. I’m blocking you from each other, anyway. You’re _mine_.” There was smug satisfaction in his tone. “Come on, give me more of a show. How afraid _are_ you, now that you’re about to die? How much does it hurt? Nice and loud, Yuuri, don’t be shy.”

Searing pain arced through Yuuri’s head, and he screamed, his fingers twitching. _Oh dear god. Please, no more._

_[Call your friends.]_

Through his gasps and tears, Yuuri heard the voice again. He didn’t understand; could hardly think. Who could she mean, apart from Victor?

_Think. Think, think._

_It hurts so much. Oh god, it hurts._

_I have to do this._

_Rahul…Onawa…Willow, even. But I can’t contact them. Never have been able, not at a distance._

“I’ll tell you what. You can gain a reprieve if you tell me about the portal.”

Yuuri took several quick breaths, the pain easing momentarily. Wiped the sweat beading on his brow with his sleeve while Crow chuckled. Could…could it have helped that they might all be thinking about him, after his broadcast? But Willow was the only one with a chip. Raul and Onawa must have heard about it, though, and about the chips being destroyed. He had to connect with them. But how? He felt sick with pain, his mind swimming.

_I have to. He’ll kill me if I don’t._

“Last chance, Yuuri. Tell me what I want to know, or you’ll be begging me for mercy – and don’t expect to get any.”

Trying to ignore the pain, Yuuri conjured images of all three people in his head. Onawa, who had reached out to him when the other shamans had simply played along with his game, as they perceived it, so that they could get paid. Willow, who seemed to be genuinely sorry for what she’d done, wanting to make amends. And Rahul. Yuuri’s heart swelled as he realized how much he missed him, and how thankful he was for the time they’d spent together in that spartan place. _[If you can hear me,]_ he sent to them all, not knowing whether it was possible to do this with several people, let alone a single one, _[help me now. Give me the strength to fight.]_

“What a shame,” Crow was saying. “I don’t like breaking beautiful things.”

An agonized cry escaped from Yuuri’s throat as the pressure built again – but something separate came at the same time.

_[You made a fine mess earlier. And you seem to have found your way straight into another one.]_

It was Onawa; he remembered what her consciousness had felt like. Beneath the chiding attitude, he sensed a well of warmth and compassion. As he focused on it, he was distanced from the pain – and then he felt the others, too. Willow – she’d decided there was no harm in trying, and was grateful to him for what he’d done to the chip. And Rahul…yes – he was there, wishing the same thing could happen in his home country; furious that anyone would want to hurt Yuuri. Yuuri felt him attempting to help kick this interloper out of his mind. Why had he never credited the elderly man with having so much fire inside of him?

Channeling the new strength within him into shielding, he began to push back against the pressure. It felt like the four of them were moving a boulder. Once dislodged, it began to gain momentum. The pain eased little by little. With the new shield expanding, Yuuri cleared a mental space where he could try to filter Crow out and think what to do.

_You’ve seen things in me that I’d rather no one knew about…you’re going to forget about those and a lot more besides…_

But Crow wasn’t giving up easily; Yuuri felt a sudden pinch, somehow throughout his entire body, that smarted and brought the tears back. It wasn’t as acute as the previous attack, however; and as the shield continued to push and repel, his mind searched for and picked up the lost thread of his thoughts. He remembered the ESP sessions they’d had in his apartment. How Crow had let him blunder in, neither of them realizing what was happening at first. Crow had shared information about himself and his past that he hadn’t meant to – and it clearly still rankled.

It also made him vulnerable, because Yuuri knew what he was afraid of. People escaping from him. The loss of control. It was the belief that he _was_ in control which sustained and excited him. Yuuri thought this must have been why he’d been willing to join the Institute – an organization that went against everything he should have stood for; that forced him to have a chip in his head, and spied on him even as he spied on others. Doing their work for them as well as he did, and making use of his ESP, ameliorated that very fear he’d grown up with of having been a victim. It enabled him to turn the tables and attack people he viewed as weak. 

 _I…I can think. The pain isn’t so bad now._ There were four of them creating the shield, and it had grown to a size and strength that seemed to be able to withstand much of what Crow was sending at it. The blue starlight deep in his mind was brighter now, the cloud slowly dissipating like smoke on a breeze. He felt like someone who had been dangled over a fire and then pulled away at the last minute. His body ached and throbbed, and his mind was muddy; but the panic that he was hurtling to his death through a profound hell of pain had gone. Taking a deep breath, he sent his heartfelt thanks to those who were helping him, and to his grandmother.

“Found a second wind, have you?”

Yuuri’s vision could focus on Crow again, the darkness having lifted. There was a hint of confusion in his voice. He hadn’t expected this. Yuuri felt him try once again to suffocate the light inside of him, but little of it penetrated his shield. This time he didn’t even flinch under the attack, and Crow’s eyes widened.

“How the fuck are you doing that?” he demanded. “Tell me. _Tell me!_ ”

Yuuri considered launching a renewed attack of his own, now that he had help. But he had a better idea. And if it worked, if would accomplish far more than knocking Crow unconscious.

“One way or another, _Doctor_ , I’m gonna win,” Crow said, his voice low and insistent. “If you won’t play ball, I’ll just have to send Nikiforov your ashes.”

He darted a nimble hand into his jacket pocket; but before he could fire the laser gun, it erupted into a shower of sparks, and he tossed it onto the floor with a grunt of frustration. It seemed to be a measure of his desperation, Yuuri thought, that he’d resorted to a tactic that had been bound to fail – now, at least. He shuddered to think that just a few minutes ago Crow could have killed him this way. And that he’d briefly wanted him to do so, to escape the pain.   

_No more. It ends here. You aren’t going to hurt me, or anyone else, like this ever again. Not if I can help it._

Yuuri was used to coming face to face with fear. Standing exposed before it as it loomed, circled, then lanced through his body. Sometimes it got the better of him, briefly. Sometimes he fought it down, with or without help. They were old sparring partners. It was never any easier or less painful to deal with…but it was familiar. He knew when its dark tendrils were creeping through him – and as he looked into Crow’s eyes now, he found the mirror of their insidious malice there…and reached out with his mind to grab it.

 As Yuuri delved into a twilight world they now appeared to share, the tendrils of Crow’s fears became a physical mass, like tree roots or snakes; and he was standing on the edge of a swamp, plunging his hands into them. Taking a moment to steel himself, he felt Willow come to the fore and urge him on.

_[Pull his fears out. Make them seem big and real. Then use them to close him in.]_

It felt like rooting out festering weeds. His fingers gripped slimy black fibers, and with a wrench he flung them up into the air; they landed in a sodden heap on the ground. He repeated the action again and again, the tainted black water dribbling over his arms as he worked. It seemed to be trying to leach out his hope and his energy, while magnifying his own fears. He felt the powerlessness of being caged in the metal chair while Crow attacked him. Of being hounded by agents from the Institute again and again. Victor captured, his memory erased. And further and deeper…the loneliness and isolation of hopping trains and living by himself in a tin shack. Betrayed, he’d thought, by the man he’d loved. As time seemed to wind backward, he revisited the deaths he’d witnessed at the hands of agents wearing the Orphic egg ring. The seminar he’d had to present without Victor, when his chip blew. The despair that had filled him after his performance in Stanford, driving him to hide in the bathroom. And when he was younger still…oh the fears were there, so many, so often.

_No one will ever want me while I look like this._

_I can’t do anything in front of a crowd. They’ll judge me; tear into me._

_I can’t please my parents, no matter how hard I try. Why am I never good enough?_

_Is this really ESP, or am I losing my mind?_

Yuuri felt the familiar spike of anxiety with every single experience that was dredged from within him. But he’d never hidden from them. All his life he’d acknowledged their existence and done his best to cope, even when they threatened to pull him under. Sometimes – many times – he had even found the courage to rise above them. To hope, and to try to forge a better future in which those fears no longer had a hold over him.

Yuuri was used to coming face to face with fear. Crow was not; and he screamed while the black heap from the stygian swamp grew: the manifestation of the terrors of one who spent his life locking his feelings away and preying on those of others, believing that if he made them afraid, he would never have to be; that he would be in control. But that illusion had slipped away from him now, and his _mind_ was screaming as well as his body.

_[No, no, no, this isn’t happening! It’s impossible! I am strong – no one can beat me! NO ONE CAN BEAT ME!]_

In the dreamlike vision, Yuuri began to use the tangled heap to build a tower; as it moved, it transformed into blocks as dark and solid as wrought iron. The shrieking around him was deafening; he could no longer tell if it was inside or out.

 _[In here,]_ he sent when the tower was tall and almost complete. _[You’ll be safe in here. You won’t have to be afraid.]_

And unbelievably, Yuuri felt Crow’s presence _helping_ him to build, desperate for refuge. When the roof was in place and all was ready, a great shadow with wings flew up and into the window at the top. Yuuri mentally fashioned a pair of iron shutters for it – and again, to his astonishment, he could feel Crow barring them himself. That was where he would stay, Yuuri sensed his fevered mind thinking, hidden away from the horrors lurking in the darkness outside. The thin dark tower spiked into a red sky; and as Yuuri looked around, he saw that the swamp had become a moat with tentacles twisting and curling just above the surface, while beyond it rose a thick mass of iron-spiked briars from the parched lifeless soil. The very things Crow had surrounded himself with were the fears that now imprisoned him. It was like walking in someone else’s nightmare – and Yuuri, repulsed, was ready to leave.

But before he did, he noticed a sparkle in the sky, and felt drawn to it. As he looked up, he was surprised to catch a penetrating glimpse beyond this strange world, past the black and the fear, to…something beautiful. Something that had only hinted at its presence before, in Yuuri’s apartment, when it had been shut away like a lantern. He sensed that whatever had been stifling it had gone into the building of the tower, and it spun serenely here, plain to see: a glimmering yellow sphere. It was Crow…but not Crow. The essence of him that had been smothered by a lifetime of ruinous thoughts, feelings and actions. None of those things could harm it, but Crow had hurt himself by attempting to separate from it. It was…tragic, Yuuri thought. And he felt momentarily guilty for playing a part in making that separation even more solid. But Crow hadn’t given him any other option. Somehow the light seemed to understand that. And it was sorry. But the poor decisions in one lifetime were but the blink of an eye. It would wait, and everything would come right in the end.

Those were the flashes of understanding that reached Yuuri. They moved his heart, even if he wasn’t sure he could grasp their full meaning. But he was thankful to be able to lift himself out of this place with a memory of the love and hope he’d felt in the light, rather than the fear and pain of the tower where Crow was now trapped and cowering.

He gradually became conscious of the hard chair underneath him and the faint buzzing of the cage. His quiet breaths. And…the presences who had remained with him, supporting him. He sensed in them a mixture of satisfaction and triumph, and he thanked them again. Onawa and Willow faded, but he didn’t want to lose Rahul, not yet. He didn’t know where he was, or if he’d ever see him again.

_[Can we communicate again sometime? I miss you.]_

He felt something like a chuckle in return. _[You’ve done well. I’m proud of you. But you have so much more to do! This is only the beginning. Many things are possible. Be happy.]_

Then he faded too. Yuuri felt his eyes well up, but he had no choice but to let go.

He sat still, willing himself to take slow deep breaths, in and out. He ought to be beyond exhausted, but…he was all right, he discovered with a little frisson of surprise. Sore in places. No evidence, however, that pain almost beyond endurance had been forced upon him. He’d also met the light of a star and been bolstered by the compassion of others who had answered when he’d called. Darkness and pain and fear – all the awful things in life – were never supreme, it seemed; and there was goodness to be found in the unlikeliest of places. The thought felt momentarily overwhelming as he contemplated it.

Then he noticed a soft gliding sound from across the room. Denim sliding across a countertop. Yuuri’s stomach gave a frightened lurch. He was positive he’d incapacitated Crow, quite severely. He wasn’t unconscious, though. As Yuuri peered through the blue squares of the cage, he watched the long-haired figure stand up from a slouch and look around the room, his face a picture of confusion. It struck Yuuri that his habitual expression had a tension to it, as if he were constantly either on his guard or preparing to go on the attack. But it was absent now. He seemed…younger; and like someone who might actually be approachable. A shiver passed down Yuuri’s back at the strangeness of it.

“Who are _you_?” Crow asked him. “Why are you sitting in that cage like that? Where am I? This isn’t school, is it? Is this still the reservation?”

 _Holy shit,_ Yuuri thought. _I must have erased years from his memory._ He wondered what to say. The satisfaction of knowing that this man was no longer a danger was quickly replaced by another surge of guilt at having done this to him. Not that he hadn’t deserved it, and probably more besides. But it didn’t feel right to do this to anybody, and he found himself continuing to hope that Willow believed so as well. It was possible, of course, that one day Crow might be able to confront some of those fears imprisoning him, and become a better person. Though he suspected that was very wishful thinking.   

 _I should say something._ He wanted to ask him how to deactivate the cage, but most probably that knowledge had disappeared with his memories. How old did he even think he was, if he’d been asking whether he was at school? Yuuri opened his mouth to speak, his thoughts still whirling.     

But no sound came out.

Because at that moment, Victor walked into the room through the wall.


	78. Chapter 78

He was still dressed in uniform, minus the hat, and holding a gun. His eyes darted quickly around, noting Yuuri, then resting on Crow.

“Leave my boyfriend alone,” he said menacingly, and stunned him senseless. Then he pocketed his gun and dashed across the short distance to the cage. “I didn’t expect that to be so easy once I saw him. I must’ve taken him by surprise. Has he…what has he done? Yuuri, are you hurt?”

Yuuri stared at him through the glowing blue grid. “Oh, Victor.” A tear escaped down his cheek. “You’re really here. Thank god you’re OK. And…you came through the wall,” he added in a small voice, an amazed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Victor looked belatedly rather pleased and surprised about this. “Yeah…I did.”

Yuuri was tempted to say he’d never been so relieved to see him, though it wouldn’t strictly be true. Because in spite of the confused feelings he’d had at Children of Gaia, when Victor had stepped into that barn, it had been the same. And when he’d regained his memories, too. This beautiful, wonderful man who made his heart sing. True to form, he’d just turned up in the most improbable way. “Crow said he didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I couldn’t feel your ESP signal. I thought maybe – ”

“I know,” Victor jumped in. “I thought so too. When I couldn’t sense you. I was outside with Chris. They got me – I guess it must’ve been Crow, but I didn’t see him – and they tranquilized me; they seem to like doing that. Chris found me and took me outside. I thought I’d be able to pick your signal up from there.”

“He was blocking us.”

“But he stopped, didn’t he? That was how I suddenly knew you were here. I thought I’d take a chance – ”

“You did,” Yuuri said in a mildly scolding tone. “You took a chance that Crow or a bunch of soldiers could’ve killed you. Or that the phase-shifting might’ve gone wrong and you’d been…” He didn’t want to add _stuck in the wall._ It was too horrible to contemplate.

“Yuuri, I’d face a hundred Crows to make you safe.”

“You’d be dead,” Yuuri huffed. Then he did smile. “But…thanks.”

“What’s this thing around you?”

“I was stunned trying to get away from the control room, and ended up here like this. He, uh…wanted a captive audience.”

Victor’s eyes flashed in anger. “He didn’t hurt you?”

“Not permanently, no.”

“Not per…” Victor mumbled, echoing his words before spinning to aim his gun at the unconscious figure on the floor. Yuuri saw him change the setting.

“Victor – ”

“We talked about this after we left that commune – remember?” he said heatedly. “I said if I’d known how much of a threat he was, I might’ve killed him when I had the chance. I’ve got another one now. Yuuri, we can stop him for good.”

“Victor – ”

“You said he’d been hurting you.”

“Not for the first time. He’s hurt you, too. And a lot of other people, I’m sure. But, Victor – all this time, we haven’t shot to kill. Not anyone.”

“Give me one good reason why he deserves to live after everything he’d done.” Yuuri could see his hand holding the gun begin to shake as he contemplated what he was about to do.

“It’s murder,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “And it makes us no better than them. Please, Victor…you’re someone who wants to help people. I…I know you’re not a killer.”

Victor looked at him uncertainly. “After what he’s done to us? Yuuri, he’ll never stop. He can get at us even when he’s nowhere near us.”

“We stopped him after the last time.” When Victor didn’t reply, he added, “And…I had him, Victor. In the corridor. It was somebody else who stunned me; a soldier, I guess. But I had Crow on the floor. He’s not invincible.”

Now it was Victor’s turn to stare in amazement. “You did?”

Yuuri gave him a little grin.

The amazement expression quickly turned to adoration. Victor couldn’t seem to think what to say.

“He’s not going to bother us. But I don’t know how to get out of this…cage. I don’t know what he was using to generate it.”

Victor considered for a moment, his eyes fixed once again on Crow. Then with a decisive motion, he changed the setting on his gun and pocketed it, turning to hunt through the cupboards above and below the counter.

“All empty,” he sighed in frustration. “Whatever this room was meant for, it doesn’t seem to be in use these days.”

While Victor was searching, Yuuri had tried to feel out the source of power for the cage with his mind; but if it were possible, it was obvious he needed practice, because nothing he tried seemed to work.

“Maybe he’s got something on him,” Victor said, bending down and rifling through Crow’s pockets. Eventually, however, he gave up and stood.

“Along the walls or the ceiling? If something up there is generating it – ”

“Good idea.” Victor studied the little room carefully. “Ah – straight across from you and up, at the top of the wall, behind the cupboards. A pinpoint of blue light. But, Yuuri…I’ve been shielding us ever since I came in. If there was a security camera in here, it wouldn’t see us. Which means _that_ shouldn’t be working either…I don’t think.”

“Who knows how these things work where ESP’s involved,” Yuuri said, relieved they’d found something. “If it’s not a camera, maybe we have to do something different to it.”

“Like destroy it.” Victor’s eyes flicked up, and there was a popping noise accompanied by a small shower of blue sparks. They had both fallen silent. “It didn’t work,” Victor finally commented.

“I noticed,” Yuuri said quietly, running a hand over his face. He’d taken everything step by step until now, assuming that if he wasn’t able to release himself while he’d been dealing with Crow, he could try later, if there _was_ a later. Now he was forced to face the possibility that it would be difficult if not impossible for Victor to release him, and his heart fluttered in fear.

“That must’ve been the mechanism,” Victor mused. “I’ve only seen something like this once before, in a lab. Sometimes the grids can be self-sustaining for a certain period of time – ”

“Which could be anything from a few minutes to an hour or more, I’m assuming.” Yuuri felt his breaths quickening. But hadn’t he just confronted his fears and imprisoned Crow with his own? He wouldn’t sit here now and have a panic attack. Whatever happened, he’d simply have to face it. “Victor, if we stay here, they’ll come after us. Crow said he had soldiers outside the door. I don’t know how long he told them to leave us alone before coming in to check – ”

“I’m not leaving you,” Victor said swiftly. “There must be a way.”

Yuuri leaned forward, gripping the chair arms. “There’s no sense in letting them get us both.”

“Yuuri,” Victor said firmly, “I’m not leaving you.” 

“Do you think I want you to? But – ”

Victor’s eyes brightened. “Phase-shift the cage, Yuuri. Then you can just get up and walk away.”

Yuuri sat back with a sigh. “I tried it. It won’t work, not like it does with gunfire.”

Victor stared silently at the blue beams. Yuuri could almost feel the concentration radiating from him.

“I told you,” Yuuri muttered.

“Try it with me, Yuuri. We’re stronger together.”

And so he did. For several minutes, they gave it everything they had – to no avail.

“Crow must’ve known it’d hold,” Victor said, “which was why he used it. Maybe he even invented it himself, if he had the tech knowledge.”

Yuuri just sat and looked at him, his stomach sinking as he thought about how close he was to freedom, with Victor. Of course there were more soldiers to face outside the room, but that was nothing compared to these innocuous-seeming blue bars. They would even have had a certain beauty if he hadn’t been trapped behind them.

“Yuuri,” Victor said softly, “phase-shift _yourself_ through the cage.”

Yuuri’s eyes opened wide. “I can’t,” he whispered.

“You can. I saw what you were doing at the beach.”

“It wasn’t good enough, Victor – you know that. This thing’ll cut me to ribbons.”

“I believe in you. Believe in yourself.”

Yuuri huffed. “All the belief in the world won’t help if I slip up. I’m not ready – I can’t do it.”

Victor thought for a minute.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. “Everything OK in there?” called a male voice through the thick metal.

Victor felt around his pants pockets.“They didn’t take them.” He pulled out a jammer and stuck it to the side of the door; its light began to flash red.

“Sir? Are you able to answer me?”

Yuuri expelled a heavy breath. “Get out of here, Victor. Please – ”

“No more of that. Look at me, Yuuri. I’ll help you.”

“How? Victor, _I can’t._ ”

“Would I be this insistent if _I_ thought you couldn’t?”

Yuuri swallowed. There were more voices outside, and more knocks, though they were all muffled. The fluttering in his chest returned.

“Yuuri.” Victor’s firm voice caught his attention, and he looked into those blue eyes. How could he be so calm? But then he felt himself sinking into them…and it was like wrapping himself in a warm cocoon. With Victor outside, inside, everywhere. He was surprised at how deep he went, so quickly. The contrast to his experience with Crow was incredible…exquisite. It no longer mattered what was happening in the physical world. Here he was safe, and loved. He sighed deeply, soaking it all in.

“Victor,” he whispered.

“Come here, my love. You can do it.” He held out his hand.

Focusing on maintaining their connection, Yuuri closed his eyes, unwilling to see the grid looming dangerously close. Its buzzing momentarily filled his ears, but he shut it out and thought about Victor. And, tentatively, raised his hand and held it in front of him. He could feel new strength and courage now, just as he had when Rahul, Onawa and Willow had been with him. He wasn’t doing this on his own. Victor was with him, touching his heart, their light mingling. He almost wanted to stop, just to savor the aching beauty of it. His blue and Victor’s white. Dancing and intertwining.

His fingertips suddenly touched something – skin? And when Yuuri opened his eyes, he realized he’d left the chair and walked forward. He must have passed straight through the bars of the cage, because they were still glowing and buzzing. But he was on the other side now, standing in front of Victor. He blinked, feeling dazed as he emerged from the lovely soft warmth he’d burrowed into.

Victor’s fingers curled around his, and he smiled down at him; Yuuri had never seen him look so radiantly happy. His blue eyes swam with unshed tears and his cheeks pinked.

“I did it,” Yuuri said in quiet wonder. “We did it.”

Victor’s smile widened, and he ran the backs of his fingers down Yuuri’s cheek. “Told you so.”

“I love you,” Yuuri said, mirroring the action.

He was suddenly aware of more shouts from beyond the door, and someone shot a laser gun at the panel. They were unable to enter yet, but they were working hard to make it happen. Crow still lay immobile on the floor, though Yuuri no longer feared any threat from him.

“I think it’s time we got out of here,” Victor said.

“Have you got a gun?”

“Chris let me borrow his – but I shouldn’t need it.”

“Wh – ” Yuuri began, but it was cut off as Victor whisked him up in his arms.

 “Concentrate one more time, Zvezda.”

Yuuri sucked in a breath. “You can’t be serious.”

“Absolutely. Didn’t you just do this yourself? I’ll be helping us both again. Come on. Relax into me.”

At his words, Yuuri draped his arms around Victor’s neck and sank into his warmth once more, feeling himself traveling toward the outside wall, his lab coat hanging down from under his knees where Victor held him. He nuzzled his face into his neck and closed his eyes.

_I should be frightened._

_I should be waiting for something horrible to happen any second._

_I’ve never been able to do this before. But…I just have._

_Victor. I’d go with you anywhere. My love, my Velvet._

The air was suddenly cooler. Yuuri felt a light breeze tickle the hair at the back of his head. “We’re here, sweetheart,” Victor said softly.

Yuuri opened his eyes. Night, outside a brick wall. A very solid-looking brick wall. The streets were quiet and empty. Victor was looking down at him and smiling again. A thrill shot through Yuuri at what they’d just done, and he tightened his hold on Victor and kissed him hard. “Wicked flink,” he whispered.

Victor chuckled and gently put him down. “This way,” he said, crossing the street and heading toward a small dark alley between two brick buildings. Yuuri followed close on his heels, and soon they were in the shadows. He could just make out Chris’s face.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone spiked my drink at dinner,” Chris said. “You walked through a fucking wall, amigo, and you came back out with Yuuri. You sure you’re not some master magician or something?”

“I’d never tried it before,” Victor said. “It seemed the reasonable thing to do, though – ”

“Of course, very reasonable.”

“Well, once I’d worked out where Yuuri was. I don’t know how long it’ll take them before they start looking for us out here, but I imagine they’re going to be surprised once they break through the door and find out we’re not there. That was the only one, and there weren’t any windows.”

Chris shook his head in amazement, then said, “You OK, Yuuri?”

Yuuri smiled. “Thanks to Victor. And…you. Victor says you went in and saved him.”

“He did save me. I think we may both owe you our lives, Chris.”

Chris huffed and shrugged. “It beat standing out here and being bored. Well, until you – ” He looked at Yuuri. “ – did your thing over the chip. Nice job. Mine’s well and truly out of commission. And those files you put out into the Cloud beforehand? Jesus, Yuuri, I don’t know what state this country’s gonna be in come the morning.”

“Really?” Victor said, giving Yuuri a questioning look.

“They had confidential information stored on everyone they’d spied on. I was able to release some, to show people. I mean, I had to give them a reason not to just go down the block and mob the tech store to get their chips replaced. Maybe a lot of them won’t want to do that now. I only had time to get a small fraction of the information out before the chips blew, though. There was so much of it there – ”

“You sure made a good choice about what to send,” Chris said.

“Did it include – ”

Chris laughed again. “It fucking well did. Mr. Maacher himself. I saw it.”

Yuuri laughed with him as Victor took a quick breath. “The president? Oh, Yuuri.” He surged forward and have him a tight hug, mumbling something in Russian.

“What does that mean?” Yuuri asked, hugging him back.

Victor looked at him and grinned. “You’re my beautiful star.”

“This is really sweet and everything,” Chris said, peering out at the street. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s come out yet, but if they do, and they catch us in an alley, it won’t matter if all three of us are blocking the security cameras. They see us with their own eyes, and – ”

“Sure, Chris,” Victor said, kissing Yuuri’s forehead and pulling away.

“You two are gonna stand out,” Chris said, eyeing them. “You with your hair – I know these hats aren’t the height of fashion, but well…And then there’s you, Yuuri, in that lab coat. You might as well shine a flashlight at yourself and say, ‘Here I am.’ ”

“It’s all I’ve got, though, and it’s cold out here,” Yuuri said. “I left my uniform jacket back in the building.”

“OK, well, suit yourselves. But we’d better make sure we stay away from the streetlights. I couldn’t call us a taxi if I wanted to, not with a toasted chip; and I don’t even know what’s gonna be operational around here right now.”

“Let’s get going then,” Yuuri said. “The sooner we get away from here, the better.”

They made their way out of the tech center, sticking to the shadows, and crossed the Longfellow Bridge over the river, the way they’d come. Yuuri hoped that at this time of night – his wristwatch told him it was just past eleven o’clock – there wouldn’t be many people around. And they didn’t meet anyone, until they approached the downtown area near their hotel. When they got to the skyscrapers, which displayed electronic screens on their sides, Yuuri skidded to a halt and stared.

Once again, he saw himself displayed on one for everyone to see. But he wasn’t fleeing with a look of panic on his face this time. It was part of his broadcast. He shrank into a dark alcove, and the others joined him. People were wandering the streets or standing in pairs or groups, talking and looking up at the screen. It made Yuuri think of the scene of a fire, drawing everyone outside in a mixture of alarm, confusion and curiosity.

_After this broadcast, I urge you to examine that data and think about how much more the government knows about you, your friends and family, everyone you’ve ever met. Politicians. Business leaders and owners. The rich and famous and powerful…_

Across a black bar at the bottom, words in white were scrolling. Yuuri only caught a few of them between glimpses at his face. He felt at the time that he’d done rather well, though he could never stand to see himself magnified like this, talking to an audience. It still made him cringe.

_President Maacher is en route from Camp David to the White House…preparing for emergency hearings…denies accusations of bribery, corruption…_

_The whereabouts of Dr. Katsuki are currently unknown…last seen fleeing Boston…leaders of countersurveillance groups are urging people to say no to more chips…_

The enormity of what he’d done hit Yuuri at that moment, and he trembled. This was big news. What lasting change would come of it? he wondered. And…how much of a part of it did he need to be? It suddenly occurred to him that he would be in demand with the media – and if he wanted a hand in helping to direct those changes, he’d need to oblige. That broadcast might be only the beginning of many of its kind. He suddenly felt sick.

Victor slipped an arm around his waist as they watched the screen. It looked like his entire broadcast was being replayed. “You were magnificent, Zvezda,” he whispered in his ear.

“I’m going to have to talk…publicly, aren’t I?” he whispered back.

Victor kissed his temple. “Isn’t it what you wanted? To tell everyone about these things? It’s what I wanted too. But for now…I think the best thing we can do is try to get some sleep. They shouldn’t know where we’ve gone. Though…” He smiled and looked Yuuri up and down. “…Chris is right about the lab coat. Unless you’re ready to do more public talking now?”

“No, I…no.” Yuuri took it off, even though the night air was cold and he was in a short-sleeved T-shirt, and folded it up and fit it into the largest of his pants pockets. “I’ll think about what to do in the morning. Let’s get to the hotel.”

No one seemed to pay them any notice as they went along. Those who weren’t engaged in face-to-face conversations were mostly making calls on their tablets. Staff from restaurants and hotels had emerged from their places of business, and nightclubs had emptied out onto the streets. They passed an ATM with a line of customers reaching around the block, and Yuuri shuddered to think what might happen when it ran out. But hopefully, with virtually everyone in this situation, the powers-that-be would act fast. He suspected, if he agreed to speak to the media, one of the first questions he’d be asked was what he thought he was doing, causing such sudden chaos. He didn’t do well when he was on the defensive.

_Well, I’d just have to go on the offensive, then. Go into more detail about what I said. How I think things should change. While I’ve got a big audience._

“Victor, if I…did interviews, would you be there with me? Off or…or on camera?”

“Of course, Yuuri,” Victor answered with a little smile. “Anything.”

“What about me?” Chris asked as they neared the hotel. “They’d want to talk to me, too, wouldn’t they?” Then he thought about this. “Which might be good for my acting career, but…not so good for a spy, I suppose, showing up on screens all over the country. Kind of the opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing, in fact. I’m gonna have to think about that particular career, though. Maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Well, I won’t argue,” Victor commented. “But it’s up to you.”  

The hotel’s revolving door wasn’t working, but the double doors next to it had been propped open, and the sidewalk and lobby were well lit, with tourists and families and a few people in suits milling around, so many of them having heated conversations over their tablets that it became a dull background roar.

“Here,” Victor said, taking his hat from his inside jacket pocket and pulling it onto Yuuri’s head. “You’re incognito. Keep your head down.”

“Thanks,” Yuuri mumbled as they entered the lobby and swiftly crossed to the stairs. They were soon outside the doors to their rooms.

Victor attempted to give Chris his gun back, but he shook his head. “I hope none of us’ll need a gun, but better that you two have it.”

Nodding and pocketing it, Victor gave him a quick hug. “Thanks again. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Yuuri hugged him next, when Victor backed away. “Thank you. I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

“Not done what you did tonight, I expect. But…I’m glad you did, Yuuri. Maybe things’ll get better now. Night, amigos.” With that, he let himself into his room with his key card, and Yuuri and Victor did the same.

The quiet stillness inside made the rest of the night seem to Yuuri like a strange fevered dream. 


	79. Chapter 79

The Friday greeted them, and Yuuri told it to leave them alone.  

They took several steps, then stopped and looked at each other silently. Yuuri was suddenly rocked by a flood of emotions, many of which he realized had been dammed up as they’d built throughout the night. He watched Victor’s chest rising and falling and wondered if maybe he felt the same.

“Victor, I…please, just…hold me,” Yuuri said as he sat down on the bed.

Victor let out a breath and sat next to him, and they wrapped their arms around each other. Yuuri was cold from having been outside in just his T-shirt, and he basked in Victor’s warmth, feeling the sharp edge of the anxiety fade away. _We did what we wanted to do. We got out. We’re alive. It’s all good._

To his surprise, he heard Victor softly sobbing into his hair. “Yuranya, I thought…oh, I was so worried…”

“It’s OK,” Yuuri whispered against his neck while he stroked the fine hairs of his head from top to bottom, long to short. He trembled again; but this was exactly what he’d needed, and he felt a warm glow inside of him chasing away the fears of the past, and of things that might have been. Right now, being in Victor’s arms was all that mattered. “I’m here. You’re here. We’re both OK.”

Victor drew away a little and gazed at him with concern. “You’re OK?” he echoed.

“Yeah.” Yuuri smiled at him. “I really am.”

“I’m glad.” Victor gave a wavery little laugh. “Then I am too.” He paused and wiped at his eyes. “Do you feel up to telling me what…what happened between you and Crow? I didn’t know he was there. If I had – ”

“I guess we wouldn’t have tried to go in,” Yuuri finished for him. “But maybe the way things happened is better. It’s kind of a long story, though.”

“I know it’s late. Maybe another time – ”

“No, I…I want to tell you. You need to know.”

Victor nodded and let go of him, then gently took his hand.

And so Yuuri told him about being pursued down the corridors after he’d left the control room. He mentioned the scratches he’d made on Crow’s face as well, because that had been bothering him. He told himself it was handy that he’d discovered a new method of attack, but it would be equally possible to cut someone up with a knife; that wasn’t something he cared to do to anybody, either.

“I felt trapped, and…and angry. Furious. Every time he mentioned you being captured, or dead, or…or whatever else might’ve happened to you, I…don’t want to think about what I might’ve been capable of.”

Victor’s expression was full of understanding as he looked at him. “I’m sure I would’ve felt the same. I did feel the same, when you told me he’d hurt you, and he was there on the floor, and…” He paused, then finished very quietly, “…I really did almost kill him, Yuuri. I’m glad now that you talked me out of it, but – ”

“I’m glad, too, because you don’t know yet what happened to him.” Victor raised his eyebrows, and Yuuri continued, explaining how he’d regained consciousness inside the cage, and how Crow had been keen to extract information from him about the portal. He skipped the details of what Crow had done to him, though he had a feeling Victor guessed; his lips were pressed firmly together and his eyes sparked. But he continued to listen as Yuuri told him about the presences who he’d been able to call upon to help him. He didn’t mention his grandmother, however, because Victor didn’t know yet what had happened in the portal. He could have explained, of course, while they’d been passing the time in hotel rooms – and Victor had asked him as well; but he said he wanted to wait until they were both more settled. What exactly he’d meant by that, he wasn’t sure. But he’d gradually come to think of it as an almost religious experience, and he needed to feel at peace when he spoke to Victor about it. Something he hadn’t felt since they’d made the decision to go into the woods near the commune and practice phase-shifting, and everything had unraveled from there.

Victor’s mouth dropped open when Yuuri told him about how Rahul, Onawa and Willow had filled him with strength, and the latter had helped him use Crow’s fears to hide his memories away. He said little about that dark, disturbing vision where he’d dug nameless things out of the swamp and fashioned the iron tower under a blood-red sky; nor did he mention the beautiful and apologetic star at the end. Sometimes there were things that touched so deep a chord, Yuuri thought, that they were difficult to share even with someone you loved, and you’d hold them to you, and weave them into the tapestry of your experiences. Maybe one day he’d try to explain it all to Victor; though he wasn’t sure he could even explain it to himself.

“You erased his memories,” Victor said in awe.

“I…yeah. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I hated doing it, Victor, but – ”

“Oh believe me,” Victor said with a grim chuckle, “you don’t need to justify it. These…abilities we’re discovering, with the ESP; we can always make a choice about whether or not we use them. I’d rather not speculate about what Crow must’ve discovered over the years. But, Yuuri – does this mean that when I entered the room, his memory had already been erased?”

There was a silence; then Yuuri said quietly, “Yes.”

Victor let out a small huff. “Why didn’t you say? I almost killed him when – ”

“Because I wanted you to come to that conclusion anyway, and to _know_ that you had. That you wouldn’t kill him. You’ve got a clear conscience.”

“Oh,” Victor whispered, staring at him.

“I hope that was OK,” Yuuri said uncertainly. “I would’ve told you, before – ”

“Yes…it’s OK.” After a moment, he added, “Thank you.”

“I think I must’ve erased years. I…I didn’t consciously choose an exact number. I didn’t really know how. But he didn’t know me when…when it was all finished. He even thought he might be at school on the reservation.”

“ _Bozhe moi._ ” Victor paused for thought. “Yuuri, do you realize what this means? Unless he finds a way to get his memory back, he won’t bother us ever again.”

“I doubt if there’s anyone willing to do for him what I did for you. Even Willow didn’t know how to do that.”

Victor’s eyes shone, and he snuggled closer to Yuuri as he gazed at him. “Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?”

Yuuri blushed and looked down.

“So…” A smile quirked at the corners of Victor’s mouth. “…there wasn’t actually any need for the ‘leave my boyfriend alone’ gun-waving entrance, was there?”

“You sound disappointed,” Yuuri said, putting a hand on his thigh and stroking it slowly. “You rehearsed that, didn’t you?”

“Maybe. I thought it was good. I meant it, you know. I was angry.”

“You could’ve been attacked in the time it took you to say it.”

Victor just blinked at him.

Yuuri let go of his hand and placed his palm on his cheek. “But it was sweet,” he said. “And I did need your help to get out. You were _amazing_ , walking through the wall like that – and then carrying me through it.”

“Thank you. And the way you went through the cage…you should’ve seen it,” Victor said softly. “I was so proud of you.”

Yuuri smiled into a kiss. “We both did good,” he whispered, before finding Victor’s lips again.

“I wish I could’ve watched your broadcast when you sent it,” Victor said, slipping his arms around his waist. “I wondered if you were nervous, but you didn’t look it on the screens in the city when they played it back.”

“No, I…I didn’t feel nervous at the time. I sent my mind into the computer, to bypass all the security, and – ”

“You did?” Victor’s eyes widened as he looked at him.

“Yeah…I never thought to try it before, but it worked. If it hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been much I could’ve done in that room.”

“We’ve _got_ to research this. The ESP. Maybe we’ll be able to now, thanks to you.”

“And you.” Yuuri threaded his fingers through Victor’s hair again, pressing close, lips hovering but not touching. “I didn’t know what was happening on the other side of those doors. I was worried. I – ”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, _solnyshko._ ”

“They tranquilized you.”

“Chris saved me. Then I saved you. But you saved me before, so…”

“I guess that makes us even,” Yuuri laughed. “We’re all heroes.”

“You’re mine, Yuuri Katsuki,” Victor said, lightly pinging his nose. “You always will be.”

Yuuri’s heart swelled and he captured Victor’s lips more urgently this time, licking into his mouth and curling their tongues until Victor let out something between a moan and a sigh, drawing Yuuri tighter into his arms. A coil of heat began to build in Yuuri’s abdomen, and his kisses became deeper and bolder, until he was plundering Victor’s mouth and unbuttoning his uniform jacket. Victor shrugged it off without breaking their contact and tossed it aside as if it were an annoyance, then placed a palm on either side of Yuuri’s neck, eagerly returning the kiss. A shiver of desire passed through Yuuri, and he moaned, gripping Victor’s shoulders.

Victor pulled away slightly and met his eyes. “Yuuri, I…are you sure this is what you want?” he asked in a quiet, breathy voice. “You’ve been through so much tonight. You must be tired.”

“So have you,” Yuuri replied, draping his arms around Victor’s shoulders. “You don’t seem tired.”

“I didn’t have to…face what you did in that room.”

“I’m fine,” Yuuri said quietly. “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Especially after that, when I thought…” He let the words trail off. “I love you…I _want_ you.” Victor was silent, and Yuuri felt a flash of concern. “But you’ve been through a lot too. If you need to rest – ”

“No, no, it isn’t that,” Victor said, huffing a little laugh. “I was just wondering…there was something I was saving in my backpack for after we’d been in that building and came out again. Well, that’s now, isn’t it?”

Yuuri gave him a playfully curious grin. “What is it?”

“You’re sure you’re not tired?”

“I’m the night owl anyway, remember? Victor, what – ”

There was a mischievous twinkle in Victor’s eyes. “Give me a few minutes – I’m going to have a shower.”

“I can come with you, if you – ”

“On my own, or it’ll spoil the surprise.”

Yuuri flashed him a bewildered smile. “What are you up to?”

“Something I think you’ll like.” He kissed Yuuri’s nose lightly, then leaped up, grabbed his backpack, and disappeared into the bathroom. Yuuri heard the shower running a few minutes later.

Wondering what on earth Victor had planned, Yuuri dug his bottle of lube out of its pocket in his backpack and tossed it on the bed, then eased himself back until he was tilted against the headboard, cushioned by a couple of thick pillows. Truth be told, he was surprised at himself. He _should_ be tired. Exhausted, emotionally as well as physically. Mulling over the consequences of what they’d done; turning the TV on to see what the latest news was. But all he could think about was making love with Victor. Maybe it was as he’d said – he wanted it right now _because_ of all those things. As a comfort, and a celebration of life, and each other, after they’d cheated death. He decided he had every right to allow himself the indulgence, if Victor was up for it too.

Something in his backpack, he’d said. Flavored lube? He imagined having fun with that; and his cock, still half-hard, twitched. There were a lot of things he’d been wanting to try but had either been too shy to mention so far, or hadn’t felt the time had been right. And suddenly, tonight, a whole future seemed to have opened up for them again. His mind wandered, and he palmed himself through the combat pants, emitting a building litany of sighs and soft moans. Victor found him like that when the bathroom door opened, letting a cloud of steam into the room. Yuuri gazed back through hooded eyes, though he was surprised to see that Victor was wearing his maroon Henley and black slacks; usually he emerged from a shower naked, or with a towel around his waist. He appeared to be at a loss for words, and Yuuri smirked.

“I was imagining all the things you might be doing in there,” Yuuri said in a sultry voice. “Or what I wish I was doing to you in there. Are you going to let me in on your secret?”

“You make it difficult to be patient,” Victor said, putting his backpack on the floor and staring at him hungrily. “I…” Then he seemed to master himself. “Your turn.” He tilted his head toward the bathroom. “Go relax for a few minutes. I’ll be waiting.”

Yuuri peered at him, still unable to fathom what the mystery was about. Then he gave a little frustrated huff, but smiled as he picked up his own backpack and took it into the humid bathroom. Victor had a love of scented steam, and it hadn’t been a good shower or bath unless the floor was wet and the mirrors thoroughly fogged, it often seemed. Yuuri pulled off the clothes he was wearing, full of dried sweat, and chose a clean dark blue T-shirt, black boxers and pair of jeans from his backpack, since Victor seemed to want them to be dressed for some reason. Not that he himself minded. He’d noticed during his time with Victor that it often seemed to give sex an extra frisson if one or both of them was partially or even fully clothed. He wondered what that said about him, then decided he didn’t have the time to try to work it out right now, and ran a hot shower – which was like molten paradise over his body. Moaning in pleasure, he soaped himself thoroughly, then dried off as best he could in the tropical air and pulled his clothes on over skin that was still mostly damp, and toweled and finger-combed his hair.

When he came back into the bedroom, Victor was lying in the place on the bed Yuuri had occupied, still clothed, arms behind his head, a picture of lassitude. Yuuri stood looking at him with a small heated grin, as if to say, _Well? What are you going to do?_

What he did was sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so his bare feet touched the floor. Then he patted the mattress at his side. So he wanted to continue where they’d left off? But…there was a bit of tension in his expression, Yuuri noticed. Like he was waiting, or wondering. Curious to find out what this was all about, Yuuri deposited his backpack on the floor and walked over to sit down next to him.

“Are you going to tell me now, or do I have to work this out for myself?” he asked, his lips quirking.

Victor gave him an affectionate grin that was mirrored in the depths of his eyes, but remained silent, simply ghosting his fingers over Yuuri’s chest.

Yuuri took his hand and kissed the backs of his fingers, lingering over the shining silver ring. “It can’t be any better than you, just as you are, like this. Here, with me, and both of us safe. It almost feels too good to be true.” He trailed his lips to the end of a finger and gave it a soft suck, his eyes flashing up to meet Victor’s.

Victor let out a breath. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I was afraid I was going to lose you, Yuuri. I…” He choked the words off. “Well. I’m very thankful to be here with you now.” He paused, and then his voice lilted up teasingly. “And since we are, I thought I’d add something special.”

Yuuri chuckled. “Is it obvious, or something I’ll find out about…later?”

“See for yourself,” Victor said in a voice full of promise.

Torn between sitting here like this, lost in the loving warmth of those blue eyes, and exploring him in however many ways it took to pry out his secret, Yuuri compromised, gripping his shoulders and pulling him forward and down for a kiss. But just as their lips met, he noticed an unusual sound as Victor bent over. A soft _creaking_ that he couldn’t immediately place. It reminded him of someone sitting down in a leather chair. There was a flutter in his chest as he suddenly had an idea, albeit vague, of what Victor might be concealing.

“What…” he muttered as he pulled back a little and met Victor’s eyes, wary and playful. Then he touched the thin material of Victor’s shirt, running his fingers over his chest. There was smooth, hard skin and muscle underneath…until he reached the area just under his pectorals, where he felt a stiff ridge with a little bit of give. Holding his breath as his eyes widened, he followed its shallow slant up to the middle of Victor’s chest, and then down the other side. Whatever he was wearing wrapped around to his back. Yuuri traced his fingers downward, and found another ridge just above Victor’s lap. In amazement, he palmed Victor’s shirt more firmly. Leather – it had to be.

“Oh my god,” he breathed. He took the bottom of Victor’s shirt, searching for approval with his eyes, which he gained with a nod, and pulled it up and over Victor’s head and arms. To his astonishment, Yuuri found himself staring at a beautiful antique-mahogany leather corset, with a series of gold swing locks down the front, of the old-fashioned ornamental type sometimes found on leather purses. The edges of it seemed to accentuate Victor in all the right places – emphasizing his muscular chest, curving in at his waist, and flaring back out slightly to mold around his hips. It was masculine and feminine at the same time…and absolutely perfect.

Yuuri knew he was goggling, but didn’t care. “Was this what you bought from that steampunk store? You’ve been carrying it around in your backpack all this time?”

“I told you, I knew we were going to come back out of that building,” Victor said softly. “And why not have something to celebrate with?” He paused. “Do you like it?”

Yuuri swallowed. “Like it…?” He ran a finger over the top edge. The material was pliant, though stiffened by something underneath or inside. It had warmed from Victor’s skin, and the smell of new leather permeated the air. “Victor, it…it’s incredible,” he said on a shuddering breath.

Victor had fallen silent, and when Yuuri looked at him, he realized a few things. One was that Victor was leaving it up to him to decide what he wanted to do…which suddenly made him feel like a child set free to roam through a toy store, or trying to decide which of a hundred flavors of ice cream to choose from. Another thing was that Victor still appeared to be uncertain about Yuuri’s reaction. Victor, self-conscious? Yuuri wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but of course it was; he was human, after all. Venturing a little out of his comfort zone, it seemed, in the trust that the man he loved would enjoy a new experience with him. The thought brought a smile to Yuuri’s face. Yes, he would definitely do that, and show him how much he appreciated what he’d done.

“Move back on the bed,” he said, giving the middle of his chest a light push. Victor scooted back, and Yuuri guided him until he was sitting on the mattress with his legs straight in front of him. Yuuri shifted so that he was straddling Victor without putting his weight on him, looking down into his eyes and resting his hands on his bare shoulders. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, stroking the back of his head, then his cheek, then running his fingers over the top of the corset again. The tension in Victor’s face was easing as his eyes followed Yuuri’s movements. Yuuri caressed the bare material; ghosted his fingers over the cold, hard little locks down the front; reached under Victor’s arms to the back, where he felt an intricate ladder of tight strings running from top to bottom.

“Christ,” he mouthed with a shudder, a wave of desire sweeping through him. With one hand fingering the back of the corset and one pressing against the front, Yuuri bent down for an urgent kiss, which Victor returned enthusiastically. Yuuri made a move to sink down into his lap, but Victor laid a hand on his chest.

“Finish undressing me first,” he said, giving him that mysterious smile once more, though his eyes were wary again.    

Yuuri wondered how many more surprises he could take before he combusted. But he straightened back up and undid the button at the top of Victor’s slacks, then pulled the zipper down – and something underneath caught the light and gleamed. _What the hell,_ he thought, feeling as though he were unwrapping a very unusual present. Victor lifted his hips so Yuuri could pull his slacks off…and Yuuri almost forgot to keep working his hands. His lips parted, and he stared.

Victor was wearing a pair of bikini bottoms made of leather to match the corset. They weren’t exactly a thong, and they weren’t ridiculously tight, but they still left little to the imagination. And Yuuri’s instantly began working overtime. His mouth went dry. Victor leaned back, taking in his reaction, and gave him a seductive look. “Do you think it suits me?” he purred.

Yuuri’s brain felt like it had shattered into fragments, but he remembered himself enough to pull Victor’s slacks off the rest of the way. It was difficult to stop staring. Victor’s striking face, with those blue eyes and rosy cheeks, his damp bangs artfully flopped over his left eye; pale broad shoulders and rock-solid muscles accentuated by the dark corset around his midsection; leather pants teasingly masking their contents; long corded legs draped over the sheets…He could be a centerfold from an alternative lingerie magazine. Yuuri almost, _almost_ wanted to back away reverently, knowing such things were for him to admire but not touch. _But I can,_ he reminded himself. _This is Victor. He wants me to. And oh god, do I ever want to._

Yuuri straddled him again, this time settling into his lap. “You look amazing,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “And lots of other words I can’t think of right now.” Victor grinned, and Yuuri caught his lips in a kiss that soon became heated. Victor’s arms circled his waist.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d think,” Victor said. “If you liked this kind of thing.”

“ ‘This kind of thing’ is very…” Yuuri punctuated the word with a kiss. “…very…” Another kiss. “…hot.”

“Good,” Victor muttered, kissing Yuuri’s top lip, then his bottom one. He reached under his shirt and pulled it up, and Yuuri yanked it off and tossed it on the floor, letting out a cracked moan when Victor leaned forward and laved kisses across his chest, circling one nipple and then the other with the tip of his tongue. When he felt Victor’s hands slipping back to knead his ass through the denim, Yuuri exhaled sharply and grinded himself onto the hard bulge in Victor’s lap, drawing more moans from them both.

His mind blanking as his need took over, Yuuri grabbed the bottle of lube on the coverlet next to him. He quickly undid the button and zip on his jeans with one hand, then impatiently tugged the front of his boxers down and released his straining cock, listening to Victor’s quickening breaths, knowing he was watching. He squeezed some lube into his hand, dropped the bottle, slicked himself with a couple of strokes, wiped his hand on his jeans, then dug his fingers into Victor’s shoulders. Drinking in his expression of surprise and lust, he began to thrust slowly against Victor’s lap. Victor closed his eyes and kissed him deeply, threading his fingers through his hair.

Yuuri whispered his name as he felt his pleasure build with each thrust, enjoying the glide against smooth taut skin and leather both soft and hard. Victor whispered back between kisses; Yuuri caught “Yuranya” and “ _Zvezda moya_ ” and other pet names, some of which he’d heard before and some he hadn’t. Then Victor broke off to trail wet kisses down his neck and over his collarbone. Yuuri groaned and reached for the bottle of lube again, then with quick trembling fingers pulled Victor’s cock from the leather confining it. Victor threw his head back, breathing out hard, and Yuuri took the opportunity to lean over and lick kisses down his neck, squeezing his cock as he did, which swelled under his fingers. Victor bucked his hips, moaning something in Russian and ending it with, “Yuranya, _pozhaluysta_ …please…”

He could hardly get the lube out fast enough, slicking it onto Victor and wiping his hand again, then rocking into him, more quickly and forcefully this time, both of them gliding against each other. Yuuri anchored his hands on Victor’s tight leather-covered waist, which made tiny creaking noises as he met Yuuri’s thrusts. The room was filled with their moans and soft cries.

The coil in Yuuri’s abdomen was tightening exquisitely, but he wanted to be closer still. Scrambling to the side, he tugged off his jeans and boxers, then returned to kneel in front of Victor, straddling his legs, his cock jutting out shamelessly as he picked up the bottle of lube again. “Prepare me,” he said quietly, looking into his eyes.

Victor let out a small breath, his pupils blown wide now, and gave a quick nod, holding Yuuri’s gaze as he squeezed some lube into his hand and reached around. Yuuri moved forward until they were pressed against each other, circling his arms around Victor’s shoulders, playing with the hairs at the back of his neck, but shifting his fingers to dig into skin as Victor circled his entrance. When he slipped a finger in, Yuuri rocked down onto it with a moan. Soon Victor had added another finger; he knew all Yuuri needed was a stretch and a bit of slickness.          

“Come here, Yuranya my love,” Victor murmured. “I don’t want to wait…I need to have you.”

Victor’s words sent a pulse of heat through Yuuri, and he lined himself up, then sank down onto Victor’s cock, his already sensitive quivering skin sending shocks of pleasure through his body. He tilted his head back and cried out along with Victor, who began to knead his ass again as he mouthed kisses against his chest. The glide as Yuuri started to move was tantalizing. He hooked the fingers of both hands into the top of Victor’s corset, gripping and pulling as he thrust harder against him.

“Vitenka…oh god,” he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

Victor’s breath fanned his chest; then he pulled back and looked up at him with bright eyes and glowing cheeks. “That’s the first time you’ve said that.”

“It’s…what?” Yuuri said, slowing his movements and trying to collect his scattered thoughts together.

“It’s the first time you’ve told me I’m sexy.”

Yuuri smiled at him through a haze of lust. “I guess I…always thought it was obvious…like saying the sky’s blue.”

Victor blinked and smiled back. “It’s still nice to hear it.”

“I’ll remember that,” Yuuri chuckled. “God, Victor. I mean…I’m burning up, and…and you’re wondering if I think you’re sexy…”

“Really?” Victor breathed in a surprised tone. “Then maybe you’ll like it if I do this.” He bucked his hips, thrusting up into him, and Yuuri cried out, trembling against him and quickening his own movements again. “Kiss me,” Victor whispered, closing his eyes and tilting his head up. Yuuri obliged, deep and wet. He was close, so close.

“Have to…stop…” he said, stilling himself. “…or this’ll be over.”

“Is that so bad?” Victor ran his hands up Yuuri’s back.

“I want it to last…This thing you’re wearing, it doesn’t help.”

“Hmm, should I apologize?”

“Not on your life,” Yuuri said with a grin, kissing him again. Now that he’d eased away from the edge, he let the contact linger, their tongues tangling lazily. His fingers glided to the waist of Victor’s leather bikini bottoms, pushing into them a little and playing with them. “You’re absolutely wicked, wearing these.”

“I like that word. Let me be wicked with you,” Victor sighed, shifting his hips.

Yuuri closed his eyes again briefly. He was still more worked up than he’d realized, his nerves registering every movement. “What do you want me to do, then?” he asked softly.

There was a pause as Victor thought. Then he said, caressing Yuuri’s cheek, “Whatever you want, _zolotse._ I’m yours.”

Yuuri smirked as an idea came to mind. “I want to see the back of your corset. Properly. I want to see the back of _you_ wearing nothing but that. I…” He let out a shuddering breath as his cock twitched, pressed between them. “I won’t last much longer, though.”

“I look forward to it,” Victor said with a lascivious smile.

Yuuri carefully disentangled himself, then reached into the waist of Victor’s leather pants and smoothly pulled them down, Victor lifting his hips. The sight of him in the corset, with his pink cock standing out just underneath, was as arousing as sin. Yuuri decided he really was going to have to cool off for a moment, though all his instincts told him to climb back onto Victor and fuck himself senseless, wrapped tightly in his arms.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he said. Victor’s mouth quirked and he blinked once coyly, then obeyed, pulling a pillow over to place under his arms.

As if he wasn’t already a work of art from every angle, the back of the corset only served to enhance it. Smooth, pale skin molded around sculpted muscles on top, slick leather broken by the ladder of intricate laces straight down the back, firm slim buttocks beginning just underneath, curving invitingly. Yuuri was moved once more by the fact that this wonderful man was wearing this for _him_ ; on his knees like this for _him_ , trusting him completely. Yuuri shifted close to his side and gently stroked his fingers through the fine hairs, almost dry now, above his ear. Victor lifted his head, blue eyes searching his questioningly.

“I love you,” Yuuri said, his heart so full it hurt. He reached under Victor’s chin and titled it up, then bent over for a long, affectionate kiss. When he broke away, Victor gazed at him in delighted wonder.

“I love you too, _Zvezda moya._ ” He ran the backs of his fingers down Yuuri’s cheek. Then he gave him a playfully sultry look. “Now…what did you have in mind, I wonder? I’m waiting, lover.”

Yuuri gave him a little grin, the smoldering desire in his belly flaming back to life. He moved to kneel behind Victor, who parted his thighs for him, and picked up the bottle of lube – then dropped it, as he realized this was the perfect opportunity to try something he’d been meaning to for a while, though it had been difficult to find the courage. Somehow, now, that wasn’t a problem. He discovered he was aching to pull sounds of pleasure from Victor and ride the wave of it all…if he was any good at it – and dared to think he might be.  

Yuuri gripped Victor’s buttocks and bent low, easing them apart, then fought down one last flutter of uncertainty before licking a hard, flat stripe from the back of Victor’s balls to his entrance. Victor hissed out a loud breath, momentarily tensing, then muttered something in Russian and relaxed again. Taking this as encouragement, Yuuri trailed his tongue up and down, side to side, and in circles, unsure if there were any rules for the best way to do this, feeling his way through. Victor wasn’t complaining – quite the opposite; the front of him had dipped down, and Yuuri could hear him moaning into the pillow. The sounds lit a fire through him, and he longed to touch himself; but he knew if he did, it would quickly be over. The leather gear Victor had been wearing, and everything they’d done, including this, still had his pulse racing.

It wasn’t actually any different from pleasuring Victor elsewhere, and the intimacy of the act seemed to give it an extra kick that had Yuuri making quiet moans, too. Victor’s were growing louder; Yuuri could feel him shifting his arms and flexing his thigh muscles. As his confidence grew, Yuuri realized he’d done this many times before, in different ways. Giving and receiving pleasure with his mouth was one of the joys of life. He experimented with making his tongue flat and thin, soft and firm; teased the sensitive areas around Victor’s entrance and rhythmically licked lines and circles. Then he picked up his pace, flicking the tip of his tongue into Victor’s entrance.

Victor let out a groan. “Fuck. Yuuri…how did you…” His voice faded into muffled breaths and cries. Yuuri listened with relish, kneading his fingers into the muscles of Victor’s buttocks as he redoubled his efforts. The coil of heat inside him was pulling maddeningly tight. God, he wanted him. He stabbed his tongue into Victor at the same time as he reached forward and tugged at his balls, giving them a firm squeeze.

Victor let out a loud cry, his body trembling. “Yuuri… _Iiesus Khristos_ , fuck me. _Please_.”

The words were electric. Yuuri rocked back on his heels and grabbed the bottle of lube, gave himself a quick additional slick, and lined himself up, his fingers curling around the laces of the corset. With his other hand, he gripped the edge of the leather around Victor’s waist. Victor had lifted himself onto his elbows, and Yuuri watched his back heave, muscles rippling, as he took panting breaths.

“I’m not going to last long,” Yuuri warned him.

“Me either,” Victor said, his voice wavering. “I want you, baby, I want you. Make it quick and hard. Please – _now_ …”

His breath catching in his throat, thoughts banished from his mind by raw lust, Yuuri pushed in, just slowly enough to make sure he wasn’t hurting him. He let out a groan as he felt himself surrounded by the familiar tight heat, and heard an answering throaty noise from Victor.

“ _Kimochi ii_ ,” Victor said, and Yuuri grinned through his breaths, wondering how he’d had the presence of mind to remember that.

He began to thrust quickly and urgently, knowing no build-up was required; that they were both close. Clutching the laces and running his other hand up and down the leather covering Victor’s side, Yuuri said, “Me too. It’s good…You feel so fucking good, Victor.”

“Yuranya…” Victor gasped. “ _Ebat_ …yes…”

Yuuri savored the mix of English and Russian as he drove into Victor again and again, watching his fingers flex and scrabble at the pillow. He’d never seen him go to pieces quite like this before, and it almost tipped him into a climax. He slowed down and moved his hips in little circles, caressing the lovely bare skin exposed in front of him, drawing out their pleasure, his cock throbbing but holding fire. Not for the first time, he felt like the luckiest man in the world.

Luckier still, he thought, if he could see Victor properly while they finished; be close to him and watch as he was conquered by bliss. “Together,” he breathed, pulling out. “Lie down on your back.”

Victor quickly did as he asked, legs splayed, chest rising and falling, constricted by the corset. Consumed with need at the sight, Yuuri guided Victor to fold his legs and then plunged back in, both of them moaning loudly at the contact. Yuuri allowed the weight of his lower body to settle on Victor, propping himself up and looking into those blue eyes with a mixture of lust and adoration.

“That’s better,” he whispered hoarsely.

“My beautiful _Zvezda_ ,” Victor returned, cupping his cheeks with both hands and then running them back through his hair. “My wonderful Yuuri.” He tilted his head up for a kiss, though it was short, both of them panting for breath. “Love me, sweetheart. Make me come.” He gave him a shaky smile. “I’m so wound up I can hardly stand it.”

Yuuri smiled back and touched their foreheads together, his breaths feathering long fine bangs; then he began to thrust, quickly finding a rhythm that had Victor wrapping firm arms around him and making little needy noises. Yuuri felt the slide of Victor’s cock between his abdomen and the leather as he moved, and drove into him harder, placing wet kisses along his neck. Victor’s fingers dug into his back, and Yuuri raised himself again to gaze at him as they tumbled together toward the edge.

And there was the glorious white star, shining and dancing, full of happiness and love. Yuuri’s eyes filled with tears to see it, even as his body strove for completion. He felt their light weaving, intertwining, and his heart soared along with it.

 _[Beautiful,]_ he sensed from Victor, with a depth and awe behind it that no word Yuuri knew of could convey.

 _[Beautiful,]_ he agreed.

“Can’t…” Victor gasped, “…keep…my eyes open. Feels so good, Yuranya… _Bozhe moi_ …”

“Then don’t,” Yuuri managed to reply. “Go with it, baby.” In the back of his mind, he knew the stars were there, would always be there, and that they could touch and dance whenever they wanted.

Victor’s jaw went slack and he squeezed his eyes shut, tilting his head back. Yuuri felt his hips roll against him and pounded harder, the tide of his orgasm imminent as he let out a series of gasps and cries. Then Victor shouted once, and again, and Yuuri felt a jet of wet heat between them. The sight and sounds of him in ecstasy were more than he could bear, and with several more quick, ragged thrusts, he came hard, calling out Victor’s name as his body spasmed and shook.

Riding the aftershocks, he looked down at Victor, whose cheeks were glowing, eyes glazed with contentment. Neither said anything, their breaths gradually slowing. Then fingers brushed across faces, and Yuuri lowered himself for a lingering kiss.

Victor smiled softly at him. “If this is what happens when I wear something like this, I’ll have to get a whole wardrobe full,” he said quietly, and laughed.

Yuuri smirked and fluttered his eyelashes. “Or maybe I can have a turn next time.”

“Oh?”

“Not with this,” Yuuri chuckled, running a finger down the corset. “This is yours, and it’s…magnificent. Something for me, maybe. When do you reckon we can go back to New York? I think I’d like to have a look in that steampunk store after all.”

Victor gave him a beaming smile and reached up for another kiss.         


	80. Chapter 80

Someone was knocking at the door. Yuuri groaned and rolled over to face the bedside table, grabbing his wristwatch. Past nine o’clock already? Victor had been asleep beside him, but he was stirring now, too.

“Who is it?” Yuuri called, pulling on the clothes he’d briefly worn after his shower the night before. There was only one person it _should_ be, but it was possible, he supposed, that someone had figured out where he was. Suddenly his heart leaped in his chest. The whole nation had seen him last night, and of course they’d broken into the Cloud control center. It could be the media, or an agent, or –

“It’s Chris,” came his voice through the door.

Yuuri felt his shoulders sag with relief. Thank god for that. “Coming.” Then he turned to Victor, who was blinking sleepily up at him. “Good morning,” he said softly, bending down to kiss his forehead through his bangs. “How are you?”

Victor hummed and caressed his cheek. “All the better for seeing you.”

“Flatterer.” They shared a kiss, interrupted by another knock.

“If you jacks aren’t decent, I’ll come back later.”

Yuuri got out of bed and strode to the door, then opened it to allow him in, messily combing through his hair with one hand. “Sorry. We, uh…just woke up.”

Chris looked at him with a smirk. “Yeah, late night.” Then he walked over to the desk and hoisted himself up to sit on it. Victor was belatedly getting out from under the sheets, wearing his black bikini bottoms, paying Chris no mind as he searched for his clothes on the floor. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Chris added.

“No, no,” Victor said distractedly. “Ah. It went over there.” He located his shirt in the corner and pulled it on.

Yuuri heard Chris emit a little snort and felt his cheeks burn. At least Victor had returned the leather gear to his backpack; if Chris had seen _that_ …“Want a hot drink?” he asked him in a small voice, getting the kettle.

“Yeah, sure. I think they’ve got instant coffee in those caddy things.”

Yuuri went into the bathroom to fill the kettle from the faucet, then returned to find Victor dressed and taking a comb out of his backpack. “Coffee, Victor?”

“I’ll have some fresh with breakfast, thanks, Yuuri.” He looked at Chris. “Have you eaten? We can get a drone to bring something.”

“Sounds good.”

When they told the Friday what they wanted, however, it informed them that only drones which took cash were operational, and there would be a two-hour wait.

“Fuck that,” Chris said, laughing. “It’ll be lunchtime by then.”

“I’ll see what I can find us outside,” Victor offered, sitting on the bed to put his shoes and socks on. “I’ve got cash, and Yuuri would be recognized.” He put on his black jacket with the gold dragon, followed by his backpack.

“Be careful,” Yuuri told him. “I don’t know what’s happening out there.” He looked at Chris. “Have you been out yet?”

He shook his head. “Just watching TV. You’ve created more national news than everything that’s happened in the past year at least, combined. I’m gonna get tired of seeing your ugly mug all over the screens,” he said with a chuckle and a wink.

Yuuri put a hand to his mouth and raised his eyebrows, feeling the responsibility on his shoulders for what he’d done, and what he knew he still had to do.

“We’ll work it out,” Victor said, approaching and kissing his hair. “I promised I’d be with you, and I meant it.”

Yuuri flashed him a grateful smile as he watched him give Chris a quick wave and then disappear out the door. Then he got Chris’s coffee, and a cup of chamomile tea he’d made for himself, and sat down at the desk.

“You really are in demand, you know,” Chris commented, eyeing him from over the brim of his white ceramic mug. He was wearing tan slacks today, with a white silk long-sleeved shirt that glistened when he moved, and a pair of sunglasses tucked into the breast pocket. “All those reporters keep saying they haven’t been able to reach you for comment.” He sipped. “Are you gonna comment?”

“Yeah. It’s just a question of what, and when, I guess.” He blew across the top of his tea to cool it, then sipped thoughtfully. “How are you this morning, anyway? You didn’t get hurt when you were rescuing – ”

“Nah, nah. I’m a CIA agent, Yuuri. Takes more than that to crack a nut like me.”

Yuuri snorted into his tea. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“You wound me, amigo.”

They drank quietly, then Chris said, “Have you two worked out yet what you’re gonna do next?”

Yuuri shook his head. “We’ll have to see what happens. If we can live in the open again, without being afraid of getting kidnapped or killed, that’d be a big step forward, you know?”

“Well everybody will know who you are, that’s for sure. And you’ve gotten some mega-important people in trouble whose last names start with “M.” _That’s_ gonna be interesting to watch, and see how it pans out. They said the mints are working nonstop to print money while people can’t pay for anything with a chip. There’ve been bank runs, even. You’ve shaken up the whole country.” He took several sips of coffee. “They’re so worried about the data leak and the chip, they’ve hardly gotten around to talking about the ESP yet. I guess you can explain all about that. Along with Victor.”

Yuuri sipped his tea and thought. Would people watching them on a screen believe that what they were doing was real? It could all be easily replicated by computer graphics. He’d have to think about that. The very idea of putting on some kind of performance with it…Well, he could plan, just like he did before teaching a lesson. And Victor would help him.

“You know,” Chris said, breaking the silence, “you two are the cutest couple I’ve ever seen. You’re obviously crazy about each other. As if I wasn’t already aware of that, the noise you were making last night would be enough to convince anyone.” He gave Yuuri a knowing little grin from over his coffee mug.

Yuuri felt his cheeks flush scarlet, and he stared back with wide eyes, his throat hitching. The possibility of being overheard had never even occurred to him. It wasn’t a danger he was used to taking into consideration. “I – I…”

“Thin walls,” Chris said nonchalantly, sipping. “It’s OK. I’m glad you’re giving him a good time. He deserves it.” He let Yuuri squirm for a moment longer, then added, “Are you sticking together on a permanent basis, then, or what?”

Yuuri drank the rest of his tea, trying to stuff down his embarrassment, though his face was still flaming. “I…um, well…I always thought that was the plan, but we haven’t made things official.” He met Chris’s eyes and said more firmly, “I’ll make sure that’s taken care of – soon.” 

***

Forget about chain businesses like Mei Wei that relied on deliveries of pre-prepared foods, sometimes from far away. The transport network was clearly disrupted, and all T stations were closed. Victor wondered if he might have more luck with a small café or street food stand.

A lot of people were out here on the sidewalks, though where they were going was anyone’s guess. Many were lining up at the few ATMs and banks that still had cash available. Others were perhaps traveling the only way they could for now. Victor didn’t mind joining them. It was a bright morning, the sun’s rays reaching down between the tall buildings and shining gold on the pavement. A fresh, cool breeze ruffled his jacket. For the first time in a long time, he could breathe the air, wander the streets, and feel free. No one was chasing him; or if they were, they were fools. If the Institute even existed by this time tomorrow, they would have much bigger fish to fry, as the saying went.

Giant screens were full of news on most blocks, and they had no shortage of audiences. The president was due to face Congress. Other people in various positions of power were also in trouble, their secrets having been aired in public. Senators Thao Mai of Nevada and Stephanie Macahan of Vermont…Governor Larry Mann of Arkansas…Rachel MacArthur, CEO of StarTech Industries, a multi-billionaire…Manuel Martinez, one of the highest-paid actors in the country…and the list went on. Victor felt some sympathy; after all, was there a single person who could say there was nothing about themselves or their life, however private or inconsequential, that they wouldn’t mind millions of people finding out about? But most of these public figures were being hit with serious charges – corruption, bribery, blackmail…Their legal activities were causing a stir, too. It wasn’t against the law for a politician to accept millions of dollars from a company and then introduce laws or vote in ways that would favor it; but Victor suspected it soon would be. This country had a chance to set a precedent for the rest of the world. God knew his own needed one. Maybe they would also swiftly act to safeguard themselves from the kind of pervasive surveillance that had taken place over the chip – frightened for their own skins after what had happened last night, if nothing else.

It would help if Yuuri spoke to the media, sooner rather than later. Apart from other things, it might go some way toward ensuring that neither of them would be harassed again by agents. He smiled fondly as he imagined Yuuri’s feelings about that, probably akin to having a tooth extracted. But he’d said he would, and Victor was determined to stand by him every step of the way. And to think, not that long ago, Yuuri had been having an anxiety attack about presenting a seminar to some professors.  

_Look at you now. On national TV._

_I’m so proud of you._

_I love you more than I can say._

He’d figured out, in one pressured moment, how to use his ESP to get into the computer system and make it work for him. He’d defeated Crow, who frightened Victor more than he’d ever cared to admit. It must have been harrowing for Yuuri, facing him in that room through the cage, though he hadn’t told him much about it. Maybe when everything had blown over and he’d had time to recover, he’d be willing to say more, though Victor had no intention of pressing him on it.

And afterward, he’d given Victor some of the best sex of his life. Again. He couldn’t think back on it without feeling a pulse of heat. His love had been growing in confidence in that respect the whole time he’d known him, though the events of last night had perhaps given him an extra boost. That and the leather gear, Victor thought with a smirk. What an inspired purchase it had been. How could he have doubted it would be? Yes, he would take Yuuri back to that store in New York City as soon as he could. And show him other places there. They could both stay in the apartment with Chris for a while, perhaps. First, though, they’d have to talk about the future. Before today, it had often felt like anything they’d done to try to shape it into something better had been met with instant obstruction. But now? Now there were so many possibilities…

He found himself blinking at a bakery through watery eyes. He’d never been one to cry easily, but it felt lately like he’d been a faucet. Wiping the moisture away with his sleeve, he decided it was unlikely there would be anything in a bakery that Yuuri would want to eat; there must be someplace that did hot breakfasts for takeout. Maybe he ought to make a mental note of things like this…because maybe they could be working and living here once more.

_Yuuri, my love…we have a future again. You made that possible._

A sudden thought stopped him, and he hastily stepped aside before the person behind him plowed him over. He ducked into an alleyway, where the noise from the crowd on the sidewalk was deadened. Yes, many things were possible now. He took his tablet from its pocket in his backpack, called up his list of contacts, pressed a button, and waited.

“ _Privet, Papa…eto ya_ Victor…”

***

Victor entered the hotel room with two large paper bags, which he put on the desk. Chris was lounging on top of it while Yuuri was sitting in the chair; it looked like he’d showered and gotten ready to go out. And he’d slicked his hair back in that flattering style Victor loved. The two of them appeared to have been chatting over hot drinks.

“Help yourselves,” Victor said, pulling a chair over and sitting down, then beginning to unpack. “There’s something here for everyone, I hope.”

“Chris was just telling me about the acting he’s done,” Yuuri said, pulling items out of the second bag. There were danishes, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, a cup of oatmeal for Chris, orange juice, coffee, and peppermint tea for Yuuri. The mixture of aromas made the room smell like a restaurant. “He said he liked trying to get you to come to aftershow parties.” Serving himself some eggs, bacon and sausage on a paper plate, he added with a little smile, “He said you had fun.”

Victor’s eyes shot open and he looked at Chris. “What have you been telling him?”

Chris shrugged, taking the cup of oatmeal and a little wooden spoon. “Not much. Just stuff I thought might interest him.”

“Like what?”

“Like that time Brandon Clary was trying to rope you for a steer and you brushed him off and left before midnight saying you had stuff to do the next day. You know, the movie star. Who knows – ”

“One,” Victor said, wondering what on earth Yuuri had made of this, “he’s not really a movie star; most people haven’t heard of him. Two, he’s not my type. Three, I really did have stuff to do the next day.” He opened his cup of coffee and poured in cream and sugar from packets.

“You could’ve let him show you a good time, anyway.”

“Why are you even telling Yuuri about this?”

“Well, you know, you disappeared outside, and we both know you, but he hasn’t known you as long, and I thought it’d be fun if – ”

“It’s OK, Victor,” Yuuri said, sipping his tea. “If there’s anything you want to tell me later about those parties you went to, I’m happy to listen.” He smiled that little smile again.

“ ‘Those parties’ numbered three or four in about as many years, you should know. I think I went to most of them just to stop him asking me to all the time. Anyway, you – ” He cut himself short. He was going to say, _You must have had some interesting party experiences yourself – we can swap stories sometime._ But this was Yuuri, and it was entirely possible that he hadn’t. Maybe he’d felt he was missing out. And maybe Chris’s stories had made him feel uncomfortable, despite the smile. Victor tended to forget that he’d told Yuuri little about his past. There wasn’t much worth saying that he didn’t already know, in his opinion; but maybe saying it anyway was part of giving Yuuri more insight into who he had been and who he was now. They had so many things to talk about.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I wouldn’t say it’s chaos outside, but it’s certainly not a normal day either. A lot of businesses are shut. The ones that are open have signs saying ‘cash payment only.’ The screens are still full of news.” He looked at Yuuri. “Showing you, too. They’re hoping to find you and…interview you.”

“Yeah…that’s another thing Chris and I were talking about.” He put his wooden fork down and seemed to contemplate this. “I mean, I’ve kind of been prepared since last night to do it, but…I’m not even sure where to start. Should I just walk into the local TV studio? I don’t even own a suit. Well, I do, but it’s in storage somewhere.”

“ _Some_ places are open,” Victor said. “Not just cafés, either. I got the idea a lot of people are trying to make today as normal as possible – which, if they run a store, might mean opening it and seeing if they can attract any business. If you want, we could go see if we could find a store that’ll sell us each a suit; we both have cash.”

Yuuri seemed to have abandoned the rest of his breakfast. He gave Victor a wistful grin. “You’re taking away all my excuses.”

“I’ll be with you, Zvezda.” He found Yuuri’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “They can interview me, too, if they want. But…one thing you’ll need before you set foot outside this room.” He stood, picked up his black uniform jacket from the floor and removed the hat he’d tucked inside the pocket, which he dropped on the table next to Yuuri, who eyed it as if it were something unpleasant.

“That’s totally this year’s fashion statement, teamed with a sharp suit,” Chris said between mouthfuls of oatmeal.

“He could wear the full uniform if he wanted, but that’s not exactly unobtrusive either, is it?”

Yuuri picked up the hat and tugged it over his head. “I’ve survived worse. It’s a good idea.”

“Well…” Chris said, pouring himself some orange juice, “…I reckon I’ll spend the day here in the city. Maybe say hi to your amigo at MIT and tell him what’s been going on, if that’s OK with you. I bet he’d like to know – unless you’ve already contacted him?”

“No, I haven’t. I…I didn’t even think. Jesus, he must be wondering. I’m so used to not calling anyone anymore…”

“I’ll be glad to see him. Do you think he’s likely to be at work today?”

“He normally would be on a weekday, but with the chips blown? I don’t know. Here.” He stood up to get his backpack, then pulled a notepad and pencil out of a pocket, scribbling something on it and handing it over. “That’s his address. I don’t think he’d mind me giving it to you, under the circumstances.”

Chris folded it and put it in his breast pocket where his sunglasses were. “I’ll track him down. And you two jacks…I guess you’ll be staying in Boston for a while?”

Victor looked to Yuuri, who looked back, and they smiled at each other. They could have discussed things like this the night before, of course, but had been sweetly distracted.

“It looks like I might have a lot to do here…with Victor,” Yuuri answered. He took Victor’s hand, and they wove their fingers together.

“Good luck, then.” Chris swigged some orange juice. “Either of you going to eat that cherry danish? I’m starving.”

***

Victor found a little boutique that sold presentable suits and made alterations while they waited. The owner of the store, a short middle-aged woman with black hair in a bun and glasses on a cord around her neck, recognized Yuuri, of course. They asked her not to spread the word that he was there, at least not for a while; he told her he was buying the suit because he needed something to wear on TV. He was patient with her questions, Victor thought. She wanted to know all about what he’d done the previous night; how he’d taken control of the Cloud. His answers were short and to the point, but not brusque. Maybe he even thought he could use this as a preliminary for the kinds of things he was likely to be asked by reporters.

Because business was so slow, she invited them to stay with her while she sat at her sewing machine in a workroom at the back of the store. Victor was increasingly amused to find that she hardly paid him any mind; her attention was almost completely on Yuuri, who was polite but seemingly a little nonplussed. She’d made cups of coffee for them all, and got up every now and then to fit their jackets or hold their pants to their waists, taking more measurements and then going back to work.

“So, this ESP you say you’ve got…can you give me a demonstration?” she asked, looking up at Yuuri from her sewing machine.

“I…uh – ”

“Oh, I guess that was kind of rude of me. I bet you get people asking you all the time.”

“No, not really.” He flicked a glance at Victor, like a plea for help; Victor just smiled and nodded in encouragement.

 _[I feel like a celebrity,]_ Yuuri sent. He’d given no sign that he was communicating silently with Victor, his eyes scanning the assistant’s work area.

_[You are.]_

_[You’re supposed to be the one dealing with people like this.]_

_[You’re the one she recognizes and wants to talk to. You’re doing wonderfully.]_

Yuuri gave a little huff, then picked up a couple of small items from the table: a blue triangular piece of tailor’s chalk and a white pencil. Victor guessed what he was going to do and wondered how the woman would react. When the chalk became transparent and Yuuri passed the pencil back and forth through it, she gave a loud gasp, her hands flying theatrically up to cover her mouth.

“Oh my _god,_ ” she breathed, her gray eyes fairly popping out from behind her glasses. “How are you _doing_ that?”

“ESP,” Yuuri said, looking at her with a little smile. “Want a try? Here.” He handed her the pencil. She prised a hand away from her face to take it, then slowly pushed it toward the chalk, like someone holding a piece of food out to a wild animal that could bite. When the pencil passed through the chalk, she gasped again.

“Oh my _god._ ” Then she put the pencil back down on the table and gave an excited giggle. “This is…I dunno…I can’t believe it! Oh my god. Oh my god. And you came here to _my_ store.” She giggled again.

Victor forced himself not to laugh. Yuuri looked slightly alarmed. He put the chalk down. “It’s not magic,” he said calmly to her. “It’s an ability that some people have, which scientists like myself and Victor here can study, and maybe in time we’ll find out how it works.”

“Yeah, OK. OK.” She fanned her face with a hand, exhaled, and started to run the sewing machine again, shaking her head. “Wait ’til everybody hears about this, though.” She gave a delighted little squeak. “Oh my _god_.” 

***

Yuuri asked Victor afterward if he’d like a walk in the Public Garden, on their way to the TV studio. He kept his black hat pulled down low, even though he complained that it felt ridiculous; he and Victor were both wearing their new black suits, with white shirts to go with them, and shiny black shoes. And their backpacks. They didn’t exactly blend into the crowd, but no one stared at them, either; and the park wasn’t very busy. The mood Victor had picked up from the people they’d passed on the streets seemed to be one of shock and concern. They wanted to talk about what was going on, what they’d seen on the screens, what their experience without a chip was like, what was going to happen next, how they’d pay for things. But if the attitude of the lady who owned the boutique was anything to go by, there was a certain buzz of excitement as well. A thorough disruption to routine, which would hopefully become a gateway to better days ahead.

It had been no surprise to Victor that Yuuri had expressed a wish to visit someplace green and quiet, beautiful and calm, before facing the public. He’d kept a keen eye on his love all morning, watching for signs of anxiety, ready to do what he could to help him relax. He respected that it was Yuuri’s decision to do this, and knew it couldn’t be easy for him. They were walking hand in hand; Victor had reached for Yuuri’s when they entered the park, and entwined their fingers, and Yuuri had given him a little grin and squeezed back.

The day was warming, and birds were singing in the trees as Victor caught sight of the lagoon-that-wasn’t-a-lagoon further down the path, its dark waters sparkling silver and white in the sun. “It’s a shame we missed the cherry blossoms this year,” he said.

“We saw them at the commune. Anyway…I think the view of the lake might be better over there, off the path.” Yuuri gave Victor’s hand a little tug and led him to a small grassy area surrounded by trees, offering a peek at swan boats on the water. Wondering what Yuuri had in mind, Victor turned to looked at him. He’d taken his backpack off and put it on the ground, and seemed to want to speak, but the words weren’t coming. His cheeks had pinked in that adorable way. Then he released Victor’s hand to run a palm nervously up and down his own suit jacket.

“Yuuri?” Victor prompted him gently, taking his own backpack off, sensing this was about something important. “Are – ”

“Victor.” He looked into his eyes and swallowed, then lifted his right hand and began to finger the ring there. “These rings…I, um…I want to apologize for not being very clear about what I thought they meant when I bought them, and…and we exchanged them.”

 _Oh?_ Of all the possible things on Yuuri’s mind, Victor hadn’t expected this. His eyes widened as he watched and listened.

“I’d like to explain now,” Yuuri said. Brown eyes shining with sudden determination, he flung his hat to the ground, knelt in front of Victor, and took his right hand in both of his own. Victor’s mouth fell open, and he gasped. “I wanted to wait to say this until we…until it was all over. You know, in the control building. So…” He let out a frustrated little sigh and glanced down, then back up with hardened resolve.

 _I hope you don’t think it’s difficult to say anything to me._ Victor hadn’t realized he’d sent the thought to Yuuri, but he received a response as he continued to look up at him from his position on the ground.

_[I just…want to get this right. Be nice while I’m getting grass stains on my new suit.]_

Victor couldn’t stifle a little chuckle, and Yuuri smiled back, before the resolve returned to his face. “I…I can’t tell you how glad I am that you came to my office, telling me you were my new research partner. And later, when you turned up in the barn that day, and I was missing you so much, I…” He bit his lip. “Well I guess you know about all that. But living with you every day afterward has been a blessing. I never realized it was possible to be this happy with someone, until I met you.”

Victor’s free hand fluttered over his mouth, and his eyes welled with tears. Was Yuuri really…was he…oh, _was_ he…?

“I love you,” Yuuri said firmly, “and I want to stay with you for the rest of my life. Whatever we end up doing, wherever we are, that’s a promise.” He paused. “Victor Nikiforov, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Victor whispered right away with a little nod, struggling to gather his thoughts despite the delicious ripples of surprise and delight washing through him. Then he moved his hand away from his mouth, watching Yuuri’s face break into a beautiful sunny smile.

“Of course I will,” he said more firmly. “Come back up here.” He pulled with the hand Yuuri was holding; and when he stood, still beaming, Victor gave him an impossibly fond smile in return, then gathered him in his arms. “Oh Yuranya, my love,” he sighed against his ear. “A thousand times yes. You make me happy too. My Zvezda.” He kissed his temple, then his forehead, then found his waiting lips; and they shared a long kiss, holding each other tight. Waves of emotion continued to sweep through Victor, all of them centered on this lovely man who had touched his life so deeply, and he felt a tear escape down his cheek.

Yuuri pulled back and wiped it away with a finger, looking at him questioningly.

“I’m crying because I’m happy,” Victor said with a little laugh. “This was the best surprise I could ever ask for.”

“I wanted to ask you on one of the swan boats, but I would’ve been recognized.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I…didn’t even have any rings…”

Victor held up his hand, displaying the one on his finger.

Yuuri huffed. “They’re only stainless steel – ”

“This means more to me than anything else anyone’s ever given me.”

Yuuri stared at him. “Really?”

“I always thought of it as a symbol of our love.”

“Me too.”

“Well, that’s not going to change, is it?” Victor said with a smile.

“No, it’s not,” Yuuri whispered, coming in for another kiss.  

***

Victor held his fiancé’s hand as they walked down the sidewalk, Yuuri hiding from prying eyes under his hat again. They might as well have been on a pink cloud somewhere near a glorious sunrise, for all the care Victor had for their surroundings. He had to keep reminding himself that Yuuri was about to do something serious and courageous, and was counting on his help.

Near the TV studio, Victor gently steered Yuuri aside into an alcove at the entrance to a closed store. “You’re completely sure about this?” he asked him.

“Yes,” Yuuri replied, pulling his hat off.

“I’ll be right next to you, if you want.”

“I know.”

“Anything you need, just – ”

“Victor.” Yuuri gave him a small smile. “I’m fine.” Then he kissed his cheek softly. “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought you were more nervous than me.”

“I know you don’t like this kind of thing.”

“I talked to the whole country over the Cloud last night. With soldiers right outside the door, and you – ” He cut himself short, swallowing. “Well, I managed OK.”

“Yes, you did,” Victor said quietly.

“And…” Yuuri stroked his fingers down his cheek. “…I just got engaged to the most wonderful man in the world. Which is so flink that I feel like I could do anything right now.”

Victor laughed, mirroring Yuuri’s caress.

“So…OK, this is me, going for an interview.” He ran a hand back through his hair. “Don’t take your eyes off me,” he said in mock seriousness.

“There’s nothing else I’d rather look at,” Victor said with a grin.

The revolving door to the studio was a few buildings down the block, and Yuuri went in first. Victor scanned their surroundings quickly as he entered just behind. Typical nondescript lobby with a white marble floor and wooden reception desk. There was a hallway at either end of the room, which echoed with the noises of animated conversations, beeping tech, and hard-soled shoes going to and fro. A couple of pairs of them approached, and from the left-hand hallway emerged a man and a woman in black suits, carrying tablets and, unusually, cardboard folders stuffed with papers. They’d been talking to each other as they strode purposefully across the lobby, but stopped and stared when they saw Yuuri, who was now standing at the reception desk, looking at the young man in a light gray suit sitting behind it and gazing back with wide eyes. Victor hurried over to join him.

“I’m Dr. Yuuri Katsuki,” Yuuri said to the man, who simply nodded. “And this is my fiancé, Dr. Victor Nikiforov. We were both in the Cloud control building last night.”

The black-suited man and woman had drifted over to the desk now, watching and listening. Victor gave them his most charming smile, but they still looked like fish out of water.

“I was wondering if anyone here might want a word with us,” Yuuri continued.

The young man behind the desk picked up a tablet with trembling fingers and pushed a button.   


	81. Chapter 81

The call was accepted on audio only. “ _Victor._ So long since I’ve heard from you,” the voice said in Russian. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” The words sounded hearty, but there was a wariness underlying them.

“I hear you’re back in Russia now,” Victor said flatly.

“Well, yes…there was business here waiting to be attended to. And since your friend – your fiancé now, is he, from what I’ve seen on those talk shows? You make a lovely couple – created so much trouble, I thought – ”

“What business could you possibly have in Russia, Yevgeny? You were in New York, running the Institute.”

“You know how it is when you have a little money. Fingers in many pies. And what’s with ‘Yevgeny?’ It’s always been ‘Zhenya’ before.”

“And ‘Victor,’ not ‘Vitya?’ I think you already know what I’m calling you about. Don’t insult me.”

There was a long pause. Then Korovin said in a low voice, “Your friend – ”

“Yuuri. He has a name.”

“All right. Yuuri said a lot of unsubstantiated things about the Institute in that broadcast he did – maybe sometime you’d like to tell me how you both got in there; I’m sure it would make a fascinating story – and I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding.”

“If anything, my old friend, I’m at fault for not taking the very valid concerns you raised the last time we met seriously enough. You said you were worried about people the Institute had recently hired; that some of them seemed suspiciously like government spies. I think you were right. They seem to have made…what’s the saying?…a dog’s breakfast of things, right under our noses. If only I’d looked into it more closely at the time, perhaps this whole silly business would never have happened.”

Victor laughed mirthlessly. “You’re trying to tell me that this is all the fault of government spies in the Institute, and you knew nothing about it?”

“I haven’t been as hands-on these days as I used to be, Victor; you know that. It was a terrible mistake. But these… _accusations_ …that Institute employees have been doing anything illegal…why, I just can’t credit it. We should never have allowed ourselves to become affiliated with the government. It’s tainted us. A few bad apples spoil the bunch, as they say. Or so people seem to think.”

“Do you know what else _they say_ , Yevgeny? A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Or so people think. Or hope. But it won’t work with me.”

“Oh now, Victor – when I saw you last, were you aware that anything was amiss? Am I sitting here accusing _you_ of your left hand not knowing what your right was doing?”

Once, Victor had found Korovin’s fondness for idioms mildly amusing. He wondered why. “Yuuri was right all along. He tried to tell me. He’d witnessed agents wearing the Institute’s ring – the one I designed myself – killing people. Then they went after him, and me. Because we knew too much about the government’s surveillance, and because we have ESP.”

Korovin laughed. “You seriously expect me to believe that? I haven’t seen any evidence. I’ve seen tricks performed by you both on screens. What you hope to gain from such things, I don’t – ”   

“But that’s the whole rotten heart of it all,” Victor said more heatedly. “You had me operating on people to block their ESP, with all of us convinced they had psychosis. If you couldn’t arrange for that to happen, you had them tracked down and killed. Not only has most of my professional life been a farce, but Yuuri and I have been fugitives for months.”

Another pause. “Speaking as a psychiatrist, I’d say you’ve fallen under the same delusions as your fiancé.”

“It’s a delusion that the Institute contributed to the surveillance databank? That Adam Lafaye, an employee, tried to kill me several times?”

“A government plant. A spook.”

“Does the name Crow mean anything to you?”

The question was met with silence.

“What about Willow?”

“Victor. If you want to blame someone, blame the government.”

Victor shook his head. They both knew what the truth was, yet Korovin could skirt around it like a seasoned politician. He’d never admit to anything unless his back was against the wall; perhaps not even then. Not that Victor had expected him to; though an acknowledgement of the damage that had been done to his life, and Yuuri’s, would have given him some satisfaction, however small.

“You ran away to Russia,” he said, “because the Institute was opened up, and its secrets are being discovered. Maybe they’ll find notes somewhere about how I was taken prisoner, had my memory erased, and was duped into performing unnecessary operations again.”

Pause. “It grieved me to hear about that. Believe me, Victor. But the blame – ”

“I know. According to you, it’s all the government’s fault. That’s funny in a way, Yevgeny, because the government blames _you_.”

Another pause. “What do you mean?”

“For a start, not paying your taxes as a citizen. You never told me you _were_ a citizen, let alone that you weren’t paying taxes here – both personally, and with the Institute.”

“How do you – ”

“I think you’ll find,” Victor continued, “that all your assets over here have been frozen, and that there are plans to dissolve the Institute completely. The charge of tax evasion is only the first of several to come, from what I understand. While you seem to think you shouldn’t have to bear responsibility for anything, there are others who don’t agree with you.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“No. If you thought you had friends in high places, they’ve deserted you, after all the embarrassment you’ve caused the government here. It’s quite a large entity, and not all parts of it are happy about the detailed surveillance that was going on. The CIA itself, along with the Institute, have a lot of questions to answer. I don’t know how deep you sank your fingers into _that_ pie, but I think they might have been burned.”

“Victor…Vitya. We’ve been friends for a long time. We founded the Institute together. Help me – we can put all this right, together.”

Victor huffed. “Exactly,” he said quietly. “All this time…this was what you were up to while I thought I was doing some good in the world.”

“You were. Many of those people you operated on were very sick.”

“How many, Yevgeny? And how many were perfectly well?”

There was a sigh. The Korovin said, “Whatever you may think, I’ve always respected you. You have no idea of the lengths I’ve gone to to protect you.”

Victor waited for more, but when it didn’t come, he said, “After everything we set out to do together…How could you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Victor pressed his lips into a firm line. Eventually he said, “Enjoy life as a fugitive, Yevgeny. I can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s shit. Unless you’ve got someone you love who’s willing to suffer it with you.”

He cut off the call.

***

As Yuuri had expected, he was in demand in the days and weeks following the break-in at the Cloud control building. His was the face people put to the downfall of public figures. With the president and many members of federal, state and local governments undergoing impeachment proceedings, and Congress hurrying to pass emergency legislation to create strict data-protection laws before anyone else’s secrets came to light, Yuuri couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if more than just a small percentage of the “M”s had gotten out. Though maybe it would’ve caused too much chaos for anyone to be able to deal with effectively, he decided. He’d wanted change, but not anarchy.

The interviews were never easy, and Yuuri did his best to control his anxiety beforehand by reminding himself of what he was trying to achieve. While he addressed the main topics that were at the forefront of public awareness, however, he also took every opportunity he could to talk about the plight of the impoverished, homeless, and unchipped, who perhaps could now have a chance at a better life. If cheap eco-friendly housing could be more widely available. If tech like the chip were no longer required for essential daily activities. If politicians no longer felt beholden to accept large private donations – essentially bribes – to vote certain ways and enact laws that favored certain people, and instead genuinely represented the interests of their constituents. If something like a universal basic income could be introduced, as California was on the verge of doing, so that there would be a safety net for vulnerable people, and an impetus for others to do something with their time apart from work. The interviewers tended not to like these kinds of unasked-for suggestions and usually said something like “That’s interesting, but…” while skirting around the topic. But damn it, while he could, he would. He was one person – and sometimes one person _could_ make a difference.

Raising awareness of the dangers of surveillance through tech was also a top priority; and if the interviewer didn’t ask about it, Yuuri would fit it into his responses. The external earpieces and wristbands and so on that now gave access to the Cloud, thanks to existing knowledge that had been declassified – and were currently so in demand that they tended to sell out as soon as they were available – were better than an implant you could never be sure was really switched off, he said; but it was important to remain vigilant, because despite the new countersurveillance laws, you never knew who was listening or amassing data about you. He would remind his audience of what the government and the Institute had been willing to do to innocent people, like himself and Victor, to protect themselves and ensure their activities remained secret.

Which would inevitably lead to requests that he perform various tricks to “show” the ESP. Yuuri knew that it required a great deal of faith on the viewers’ part, because everything he and Victor did could be taken as digital trickery, or a magician’s act; but he’d decided from the beginning to be open and honest about it in the hope that others with the ability would recognize it for what it was and want to learn how to use it without being afraid. Victor attended as many interviews with Yuuri as he could, especially when Yuuri was adamant with the broadcasters that it was both of them or neither. He never seemed especially nervous himself beforehand, and often seemed to sense it when Yuuri needed some quiet comfort at such times. Yuuri felt certain that he could brave it without Victor there, but he was eternally grateful for the warm support of his fiancé.

Victor gladly helped with the ESP demonstrations, and charmed interviewers and audiences alike. They’d agreed that opening a portal would not be a good idea, however, as those were still a largely unknown variable. Yuuri was waiting to tell Victor about who he’d met inside until the time felt right, but he’d explained that he’d physically survived with no ill effects until another portal had opened for him. He was in no doubt that Victor knew there was more to the story than that, if for no other reason than Yuuri couldn’t open portals himself yet, and it would have been a strange coincidence that one leading to the New York street where Willow lived just happened to appear in front of him. But he hadn’t put any pressure on Yuuri to tell him. It wasn’t a secret as such – but how could he bring into a conversation the fact that he’d met people who were dead? What were the implications? Would that give Victor thoughts about his mother? Yuuri saw no need to rush into such a sensitive topic.

It had, however, joined a growing stack of research proposals.

Yuuri had dreamed for years about what he might be able to do to convince the public that ESP was real. It seemed a necessary step to take before it could be studied in any depth and presented to a scientific community that would take it seriously. And now…ironically, thanks to the Institute, he and Victor not only had their jobs back at Harvard and MIT, but their pick of projects to work on as well – individually, together, or with other scientists; though Yuuri had asked to go part-time due to the other responsibilities he was juggling. After a businesslike conversation with the head of neuroscience at the university, he had returned to the apartment he and Victor shared and collapsed on the sofa, weeping with relief, amazement, grief for the months he’d spent worrying he’d never work as a scientist again, and a dozen other emotions he’d struggled to name. He could see, too, how pleased Victor was to have such tantalizing research prospects at his fingertips, in addition to the ideas he already had for his own areas of specialism. Yuuri knew he wasn’t a habitual worrier like himself – though he suspected he’d made significant improvements in that area of late – but Victor _did_ worry, and he’d been concerned about losing the career he loved to the point where it had made him vulnerable to depression. The brightening in his mood since Harvard had told him that the original offer of a permanent post still stood had been a joy to see.

This had been helped by the fact that since they had both made requests during interviews for patients who had undergone operations at the Institute to schedule an appointment through Harvard if they wanted their blocking chip removed, several had done so. Victor had made another ultrasonic device, so that there were two in existence again; and while Yuuri offered to perform the procedure when Victor was busy, it was clear that Victor preferred to do it himself when he could. Yuuri knew it wasn’t because he didn’t trust him – he’d disintegrated both chips in Victor’s head, after all. Rather, he suspected, Victor saw it as a way of atoning for the past, and righting wrongs for which he still felt he shared some blame. The patients who came to them were carefully monitored afterward, and only one out of twelve had redeveloped symptoms of what seemed to be true psychosis. And in that case, Victor was happy to restore the chip until a better solution could be found, knowing that, for once, the operation was achieving what it had been designed to do.

Yuuri was still on hand at every procedure, to work with the patients when their ESP returned. The fact that they expected this and understood what was happening often went a long way toward mitigating the fear they’d originally experienced, though it proved to be a good idea for someone to be available to help them come to terms with the ability and teach them ways to make use of it. Victor assisted when he had the time, and Yuuri began to think he would never stop being amazed that they were both doing this – were both _able_ to do this – when not so long ago, it had been Yuuri’s embarrassing secret coming to light and Victor who had been concerned that he was psychotic.    

However, one more operation to insert a blocking chip had recently been performed to prevent the patient from being able to use their ESP. That person was Crow. Victor hadn’t been invited to do it, and had only been informed afterward. It had been done without Crow’s knowledge or consent.

“He must’ve known he had the ability,” Yuuri had said when Victor told him over dinner in the apartment one evening. “Someone as strong as he is, and a Native American too – he must’ve known since he was really young. Wasn’t he upset that it suddenly disappeared?”

“I don’t know his history,” Victor had replied. “One of the people I trained to be able to perform the operation said she’d been given consent to tell me what she’d done. I don’t know where Crow is or what state he’s in.” He paused. “And I don’t see why I should.” Then he added in a mutter, “He’s lucky to be alive.”

“He is,” Yuuri agreed quietly. “Thanks to you. I was hoping he might stand a chance, now, of…I don’t know, turning left instead of right.”

“He still does.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, though, that he had no choice about it? If they’d contacted me, I would’ve – ”

Victor raised an eyebrow.

“Well…I don’t know. Maybe I could’ve helped him.”

“After everything he did to you? To us both?”

“With those years of missing memories, maybe he’s a different person now. Is it fair to clip a bird’s wings?”

Both of them had stopped eating during the conversation. Victor gazed intensely at Yuuri from across the table. “Haven’t you done that already? How is this any different?”

Yuuri didn’t have an answer at the time. He still didn’t – because he knew Victor was right. Despite the lost memories, he would no doubt remain a troubled person with a troubled past. And with the ESP abilities he had, who was to say he wouldn’t find another way to become a danger to others? What guarantee was there, furthermore, that his memories were permanently walled off for the rest of his life? Yes, allowing him the freedom to use his ESP would have been very risky. But even so, Yuuri couldn’t help but feel concerned about what had been taken away from him – and what he himself had felt compelled to do to him. He _was_ beautiful, in a way. There was light inside of him. But…he’d chosen his path, and that was an end of it.

Most everyone else who was aware of their ESP, thankfully, seemed to have chosen a different path. Yuuri had wanted to give them the opportunity to support and learn from each other, and to be a part of that himself. Not just people who had recently had their blocking chip removed, but those such as Willow who were afraid of what they were capable of, or Rahul, who had rarely met anyone else to share it with. He’d thought back on his time with Victor at the Elkhorn Project, and everything that had been special about it; most importantly, the sense of community. And a commune didn’t have to be offline – nor did it have to be confined to California; not anymore.

It had taken a while for Yuuri to find the courage to consciously admit to himself that founding one in Boston which welcomed but was not exclusive to people with ESP might be a realistic goal. When he’d mentioned it to Victor, he received a positively effusive response, which had helped greatly; because while he was willing to put the effort in, he did not have much confidence in his social skills. Teaching and giving interviews had inured him to the most difficult situations, but he knew he was never going to be someone who felt comfortable being the center of attention. Victor, however, did, though it wasn’t something he actively sought. People were simply drawn to him. Yuuri could understand that.

And so he’d requested a reduced workload at MIT and begun to put tentative plans in place for cleaning up and regenerating a large patch of urban brown space that was surrounded by some of the most beautiful areas the city had to offer – parks, countrified paths, old buildings, the river. He and Victor had attended meetings with local government officials, who had warmed to the idea; the fact that they were both well-known national figures beyond the confines of the scientific world no doubt worked in their favor. Victor was an old hand at attracting sources of funding, though they’d been promised grants from local organizations as well. The project was still in its infancy, but Yuuri’s hopes for it grew by the day – even though he often found it hard to believe that this was what he was really doing; that someone who still experienced bouts of anxiety and self-doubt, and whose instinct drove him to spend time alone, could achieve such a thing. He would not have attempted it on his own, he was sure. And apart from Victor’s substantial contributions, there was one other person whose help he was deeply grateful for.

It had occurred to him one day to try calling Carla at the Elkhorn Project. They had operated on a closed tech system there, of course; but he’d wondered if there might be a chance that they’d decided it would be safe to connect to the outside world again. And to his surprise, she’d answered. She seemed delighted to hear from him, in fact, and had been eager to talk with him about what he and Victor had done and what they were planning for the future. Once Yuuri had explained, he’d been astounded to hear her express an interest in coming to Boston to help them establish the new commune. He never would’ve asked her to do such a thing, especially since she’d seemed so happy where she was. But she said a fresh challenge would be exciting, and she wasn’t averse to possibly reviving her old career in psychology at the same time. She was remaining at the Elkhorn Project for now, though Yuuri was communicating with her almost daily via messages or calls.  

She didn’t seem to hold it against them that they hadn’t told her about the ESP, though she said she reserved the right to ask them to be her first subjects of study. And, in fact, she’d been planning on trying to contact them herself, in order to ask them what they wanted her to do with their possessions from the house at the commune. When the agents had turned up asking questions, she’d known right away that the two of them were in trouble, she said; and the least she could do was try to safeguard what belonged to them until they could return. So while another councilor had pretended to be unsure which house was theirs, and led the agents on a meandering tour of the commune, Carla had rushed there with Sheila and Sumayya and others from the area, and quickly taken away everything they could. Yuuri had been moved to tears by the gesture; and one of the first things he and Victor had done after they’d signed the lease to their new apartment was fly out to California and revisit the Elkhorn project, to say their thank-yous and goodbyes as well as to retrieve their possessions. Even though they hadn’t been gone long, it had already felt oddly to Yuuri like being on a nostalgic vacation to a place from part of his life that was over.

One morning he found himself holding a relic of that past, in front of the closet in the spare bedroom of the apartment he and Victor shared in Boston. Golden sunlight shimmered through the gauzy curtains, dust motes dancing in its beams, warming Yuuri’s cheeks and hair. The noises of Victor finishing his breakfast and washing the dishes were vaguely discernible in the background, clinks and the odd clatter. But the silence here seemed to surround Yuuri like a soft blanket. He was in no hurry; while Victor would be leaving for Harvard in a little while, he himself was working from home today, though he suspected the variety of tasks that awaited him would end up constituting more hours than a full day at the university. They were tasks that he’d willingly taken on, however, and he looked forward to them.

He fingered the thick shoulder straps of the battered blue backpack he was holding. It had become so integral to his life for a time that it had practically felt like a part of him. And then when they’d moved here, he’d stored it in this closet along with other items they had no other home for. Victor had agreed to go on a short camping trip with him to the Berkshires in two weeks’ time, and he’d been wondering if he ought to replace this old thing.

As he stood and mused, he heard the click of claws on the tiled floor outside the room, and then panting, before he suddenly received a visitor.

“Hey, girl,” he greeted Makkachin. “Has your daddy fed you yet? Of course he has.” He scratched affectionately between the big greyish-brown poodle’s floppy ears. “Wondering what I’m up to, are you? I’ll take you for a W-word in a while, don’t worry.”

She wagged her tail and sniffed at the backpack. In the short time she’d been with them so far, he and Victor had both had tried, mostly in fun, to communicate with her via ESP – only to find it wasn’t very different from the sort of intuitive communication that caring owners had with their pets anyway, because animals couldn’t talk. Though Makka _did_ seem to be able to pick up on mental images like holding a leash and walking through a park, so there was no point in using euphemisms like “W-word” if they were thinking of that at the same time, because she knew.

“So – should I keep using this thing, or is it going to fall apart sometime soon?”

There was an excited woof, followed by more thumps of the tail on the carpet as she sat down. Yuuri chuckled and idly examined the other things on the shelves in the closet. Brainquake. He’d played against Victor a few times recently, and Victor was coming close to beating him, though he hadn’t managed it yet. Yuuri could see the determination glittering in his eyes when he tried, and it was so sexy that he was happy to play him just so he could sit there and watch. And…oh, he’d left the biochem monitor here. Stashed at the bottom of his backpack all that time – first out of habit, then because he hadn’t wanted to part with it even though he couldn’t use it without a chip, and finally because he’d simply forgotten it was there. He and Victor had carefully vetted removable earpieces to function as chip replacements, and thinking about it now, he decided it wouldn’t be difficult to make adjustments so that the biochem monitor would be able to connect to give him readouts once again. The question was, did he want to? It was difficult to recall exactly what it had been like to experience those anxious feelings that had driven him to create the device in the first place.

Makkachin gave his hand a wet nudge. “I’m being boring, aren’t I, just standing here?” He stroked her muzzle. “Sorry, girl.”

“Ah, there you are. You _found_ him, Makka.”

Before Yuuri could move, two arms slipped around his waist from behind. Victor was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt buttoned at the wrists, and Yuuri caught the scent of his lavender aftershave. It made him feel underdressed in his sweatpants and T-shirt, but then he wasn’t the one going to the university today. He sighed and leaned back, and Victor pressed a light kiss against his neck.

“What are you up to, _solnyshko_?” he murmured.

“I was just wondering if I ought to get rid of this old backpack. You can fit a lot of stuff in it, but after all the use it’s had, it’s pretty shabby. Then Makkachin came to see me, and – ”

“No.”

“No – ?”

“No, you shouldn’t get rid of it.” Victor leaned his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder.

“I can’t use it forever. It’ll go to pieces.”

“Then don’t. Put it somewhere special, and then get a new one if you want. After all the places it’s been with you, and all the use you’ve had from it, it seems to me like one of those things you should keep. Like…that baseball jacket of yours?”

Yuuri looked at it, hanging in the shadowed corner of the closet. It reminded him of the extra weight he used to carry, but also of the joys of cheering on his team. He nodded. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Victor said in a voice that playfully questioned how anything else could be the case. “Come with me to the kitchen while I make some coffee?”

His arms dropped away, and Yuuri suddenly felt cold and missed the lavender scent. He almost left the backpack out on the bed, but mindful that someone would be sleeping there later, he prepared to tuck it on a shelf, then remembered he’d left something inside. Unzipping one of the pockets, he removed the little silver-painted wooden horseshoe, and fingering it fondly, tucked it in his pants pocket. He stowed his backpack in the closet and followed Victor out of the room, Makkachin clicking across the tiles with them.

By Boston standards, it was a smallish apartment; but compared to the communes, it was luxurious – with the added bonus of a Friday you could turn off or on, and which Yuuri had therefore never made use of since they’d moved in, though he suspected Victor sometimes took advantage of the conveniences it offered when he wasn’t around. And although they hadn’t tried to stamp their personalities on the place too deeply because they wouldn’t be living here long, it was home for now. Their tablets had been left on the coffee table overnight, next to empty mugs and the brainwave-entraining device, which Yuuri had used for an ESP session after Victor had gone to bed; though he’d discovered, to his delight, that with all the publicity around the subject since they’d broken into the Cloud control building, fewer people were reaching out to him in panic and confusion, presumably because they better understood what was happening to them. Instead, he was having more enjoyable sessions with “presences” he already knew. Though he was getting better at being able to contact them himself, and it didn’t require a special session of concentration on the sofa. If he opened himself to it, they could exchange a hello at any time, which almost felt as easy and convenient as the Cloud messaging service – but better, because it was more personal.

Victor busied himself around the coffee maker while Yuuri boiled water for rosehip tea using Phichit’s rapid-heat rod. He leaned with his back against the counter, inhaling the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. Makkachin sat in the middle of the kitchen floor watching them, the tip of her pink tongue lolling and her tail sweeping to and fro across the tiles.

“You’ll keep an eye on Yuuri today, won’t you?” Victor said to her. “Make sure he behaves himself?”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “I’m not exactly going to sit on the sofa and surf the Cloud all day. I’ve got a lot to do.”

“I know.” The coffee started percolating, and Victor breathed in the steam, then looked at him. “I’d be concerned about the opposite, with you. Working yourself too hard. You need to take a break once in a while.”

Yuuri removed the teabag from his mug, dropped it in the compost bin, and took a sip, eyeing him over the rim. “I do. A lot of the time, that involves you. And…very pleasurable things.”

“And when I’m not around?” Victor asked with a smirk.

Yuuri just grinned back and took another sip.

“On second thought, don’t answer that…but on third thought – ”

Yuuri laughed. “I do relax with things besides sex, you know.”

“You’re too much fun to tease,” Victor said with a fond grin, pouring himself a mug of coffee and adding milk and sugar. “I’ve got two chip removals scheduled for Friday morning, by the way; I’ve asked to do them at the MIT lab because I’ll be there with you then. Do you have time for that? Or – ”

“Sure. I know it’s important. I should be able to get through a pretty big to-do list today, anyway. I’ve got a lesson on the subsynaptic segregation of metabotropic and ionotropic glutamate receptors to plan – that’ll be a barrel of laughs. Then I was going to message Onawa and Rahul about the interview for the study on how people develop ESP. I know we won’t be officially starting that until after we’ve completed the one we began together last year; but I don’t think there’s any harm in laying the foundations, especially since qualitative analysis can take a while.”

Victor was leaning back on the counter next to him now. “You’re not planning to interview _me_ , are you?”

Yuuri snorted. “Yeah, right, Victor.”

“Maybe it’d be…kind of hot to let the world know how _I_ got my ESP. After all the times I’ve avoided the question or lied in interviews.”

Yuuri couldn’t help it; he blushed, to Victor’s obvious satisfaction. “Conflict of interests. The researcher doesn’t include themselves in a study. Research Methods 101.”

“ _You’d_ better study me, then. Unofficially.”

Yuuri looked up from his tea, hooded his eyes, dropped his voice, and said seductively, “I’ll study you any time you want, Vitenka.”

Victor breathed out and returned the heated look. Yuuri had been teasing him back, but there seemed to be an earnest note in Victor’s voice when he said, “I can manage ten minutes…”

“ _I_ can’t,” Yuuri said, pretending to be offended. “This is how you treat your fiancé?”

“It could be fun.”

“Save it for later and I’ll make you glad you did.”

Victor continued to stare. “I’ll be thinking about that all day now.”

“Good. You do the same thing to me, so you can find out how it feels.”

“It feels amazing.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re irresistible.”

Yuuri looked at him, then burst out laughing, and Victor laughed too. There was a pause while the laughs eased into chuckles and they both finished their drinks.

“So what else will my lovely Zvezda be doing today?” Victor asked, putting his mug in the sink.

“Well…Carla and I have been trying to think of a name for the commune.”

“Oh? Can I help?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

Victor was silent for a moment. “I’d have to think about it.”

“At first I thought it might be good to include ‘project’ in it, you know, like the Elkhorn Project. Since it’s also going to be the first legal commune in the United States, unless someone else beats us to it. But…‘project’ seems kind of tentative too, like it’s an experiment. So maybe not. I don’t want anything New Agey either, though.”

“Sun and Stars?”

“Sounds like a pub. Plus, New Agey.”

“Katsuki and Company?”

“Are you serious?”

“Brains of Boston?”

Yuuri guffawed. “Thanks but no thanks. You can take your alliteration and shove it.”

Victor gasped dramatically. “Such harsh words. All right, joking aside. What about giving it a simple name, after something nice nearby? Like Riverside or Parkside?”

Yuuri considered. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“I have those sometimes.”

“What, good ideas or bad ones?”

“Both. Occasionally at the same time.”

Yuuri chuckled again; then his gaze took on a more serious cast. “I meant to tell you – I’ve heard back from the Citizenship and Immigration Service. They say they’d be willing to let Rahul and Jignesh come to live at the commune, if they wanted.”

A smile of delight lit Victor’s face. “Yuuri, that’s wonderful! Have you asked them yet?”

“No. I mean, it’s possible they’re happy where they are in California, though at least Rahul got word that I was hoping he’d contact me and did that much, because it’s still hard to do anything long-distance with him using ESP. I thought I’d better make sure he’d actually be allowed to live in the country before I said anything to him. When I talk to him about the research interview, I’ll ask him how he feels about it.” He gave a twisted little grin. “Apparently my status as a respected public figure helped to secure permission for residency, or something like that. That’s what the message said.”

Victor leaned over and rested his arms on the counter, his eyes sparkling. “I know you’re not happy about being seen that way. You must be pleased with everything it’s letting you accomplish, though. Think of all the good you’ve done and are still doing. The chip’s optional now – we can even go on the T without a Cloud connection; how’s that for progress? And everyone’s talking about ESP and the paranormal.” He smiled. “Though the thing I like best is rather selfish. Thanks to you, Yuuri, no one from any shady organization – and I include the government in that – will dare try to hurt either of us, because we’re so well known. You’ve given us our lives back.”

His words sent a warm wave through Yuuri, who looked back at him with a soft grin. “Why do you always leave yourself out when you say things like that? I couldn’t have done any of it without you. You went into that control building with me; you fended off armed soldiers while I did the broadcast. You could’ve told me I was crazy for suggesting we even try something like that.”

“I’d never do such a thing,” Victor said quietly. “You always have a good reason for what you say…even if I’m not always sure what it is at first,” he added with a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I hope the Patels come. I’ve been wanting to meet them. There’s so much to plan.” There was a wistful look on Victor’s face as he added, “It’s nice to have so many things to look forward to again.”

“Like…a wedding?” Yuuri said playfully.

“I’m looking forward to that more than anything else.” Victor took Yuuri’s right hand and ran his fingers across it, lingering over the silver ring, then kissed his knuckles and dropped his hand, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I still think it’d be fun to exchange our vows on hoverboards.”

“Victor,” Yuuri laughed, shaking his head.

“Don’t you think the CIA would lend us a couple? It’s a special occasion after all, and they _owe_ us, Yuuri.”

“They do? How?”

“They kept shooting at us, which was rude if you ask me.”

“Then we broke into their building and fucked up their national computer system, so maybe they think we’re even now.”

“Just imagine though.”

“I am. I’m imagining us dressed like Paul Revere – or you, anyway – and now you’re saying we should be on hoverboards. Maybe our ideas need some refining.”

“Paul Revere? Why?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I’m not really serious. But…I’ve always wanted to see you dressed like that.” He lowered his voice. “It’d make our wedding night extra-memorable.”

“So much to choose from,” Victor purred. “There’s the old-fashioned outfit I bought at the antique store, and…I don’t think we’re done with the leather things yet, do you?”

“Oh god, Victor,” Yuuri breathed, though he was still grinning. “You’re going to make me wish we spent those ten minutes together after all.”

“Save it for later and I’ll make you glad you did,” Victor whispered, hooking a finger into the collar of his T-shirt and pulling him close.

“No fair – I said it first.”

“I’m saying it now.” Victor tilted his head down and gave Yuuri a soft kiss. A moment later he broke gently away. “I wish I didn’t have to go to work.”

“Just be glad you have work to go to again.” Yuuri watched as Victor opened his canvas bag on the table and packed a carton of water, a tablet, and various other items he needed for the day. Makkachin came to sit next to him, and he scratched behind her ears. “How’s Anna – did you see her this morning before she went out? She must’ve left early.”

“Yes, for a few minutes. She wanted to take lots of photos around the city. I’m meeting her for lunch later at Le’s near the university. Would you like to come? Twelve thirty.”

“Sounds nice. Sure. Did she say if she’s still having symptoms?”

“She said she’s still a little dizzy, but it’s nothing that should stop her from going out on her own. After all the touring we did with her yesterday, I think she wanted some time to herself for a while.”

“I can understand that.”

Yuuri had met Victor’s younger sister three days ago, when she’d arrived for a brief stay with them. He’d known who she was as soon as he’d spotted her exiting customs at the airport. Like her brother, she was tall and willowy, with broad shoulders and those striking blue eyes, her long fair hair in a ponytail. She was quick-witted too, though her English wasn’t as fluent as Victor’s. Yuuri had thought about turning the translator on in his earpiece, but then decided he could understand her well enough, and he preferred that barrier not to be there if he could do without it. While she was clearly excited to meet him and see the apartment and the city – and to bring Makkachin, Victor’s father having acceded to his request that his beloved poodle live out her remaining days with the two of them – the main purpose of her visit had been to have her blocking chip removed.

Victor had done it in the apartment the day after she’d arrived, as she lay in the guest bed, as comfortable as they could make her. The fear in her eyes – and in Victor’s – was plain: would the psychosis symptoms return? Though Yuuri saw hope there too. As usual, he was on hand to help after the procedure, but they’d agreed that Victor would be the one to try to reach out to her first. There had ended up being no need, however, because Anna had sent understandings into the ether that both of them had picked up on.

_[I feel so different. Am I sick again? I’m hungry. Dizzy. Why are you looking at me like that?]_ She was eyeing Victor curiously, as his expression had melted into relief and joy, and tears dropped onto his cheeks. What she sent them amounted to little more than segments of random thoughts, but it was enough for them to know that Anna was not mentally ill, and never had been. Victor and Yuuri had both taken her hands, and there had been tears all around.

_[I can sense you,]_ Victor sent. _[I’m so happy.]_

_[Dizzy…feels odd. Is this normal?]_

_[It’s OK,]_ Yuuri sent, smiling into her eyes. _[We’re here.]_

She looked from one of them to the other, then relaxed back into the pillows propped behind her. _[Thank you.]_ She gave a shaky sigh and smiled. _[Thank you so much.]_

Now, in the bright beams of the morning sun shining through the kitchen window, Yuuri watched Victor put on his suit coat, the light gleaming in his hair. He’d been keen to start teaching Anna how to use the ESP. After all the years of turmoil the Nikiforovs had experienced with what they’d believed to be her illness, Yuuri thought he could understand his enthusiasm. He loved his sister, that was clear; and she often looked at him with something approaching adoration in her eyes, perhaps born of gratitude for the years he’d taken care of her. Yuuri wanted to get to know her better, but there would be little time before she was due to fly back to St. Petersburg. Victor had suggested they both go there with Makkachin for Christmas; and while the thought of visiting a cold Russian city at that time of year was a little daunting, Yuuri had readily agreed. That was several months away yet, but something else to look forward to.

“I know you’ve been trying to show her ESP stuff,” Yuuri said as Victor closed his bag and pulled the strap over his shoulder. “Just…no stupid dangerous shit like walking through walls to try to impress her, OK?”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “It impressed _you_ , didn’t it?”

Yuuri smirked. “That was different.”

“Well. I feel no compulsion to show off to my own sister.”

Now Yuuri raised an eyebrow.

“All right, maybe a little bit. But I promise, no walking through walls.”

“Good.”

Victor went to the door, accompanied by Yuuri, who ran his fingers up the strap of Victor’s bag. Makkachin was soon with them as well. “Is Chris still coming for dinner tonight?” Yuuri asked.

“He hasn’t told me otherwise. He was glad to hear you invited Phichit too.” Victor paused. “You know, ever since they met, I’ve been wondering about them. Especially with Chris being based here now. Do you think, maybe…?”

“I don’t know, but I hope. Phichit could do with getting together with a nice jack.”

“As long as he likes loud shack music. Jesus, the number of times I had to put up with that.” 

Yuuri chuckled. At least Victor _liked_ the loud music he played, and danced to it with him sometimes. “I’m cooking for five tonight, then. I’d better get a few things ready soon.”

“Thank you.” Victor slipped a hand behind his shoulder and one around his waist. “For everything. You’ve been wonderful with Anna, too. She really likes you.” He smiled. “She has good taste.”

“She’s lovely. Just like her brother.”

“Flatterer.”

A grin crossed Yuuri’s face. That was _his_ line. Though maybe it didn’t actually suit either of them. “It’s the truth.” He trailed the backs of his fingers down Victor’s cheek, then captured his lips in a kiss. “I’ll see you both at lunch.”

Victor kissed his forehead. “I’m looking forward to it.” Then he knelt and gave Makkachin an affectionate hug, and with a final lingering smile at his little family, let himself out the door.

Yuuri had only just sat down on the sofa with his open carryall next to him a short time later, however, when he sensed Victor communicating.

_[Take the old girl for a walk today?]_

_[I plan to.]_ He shook his head and smiled, pulling out his tablet.

Five minutes passed, and he’d accessed the qualitative interview for their study and was browsing through the questions.

_[I’m almost out of clean clothes. I’ll do the laundry tonight, I promise.]_

Sometimes even Victor’s genius brain busied itself with the most mundane thoughts, especially during his commute, even though that only consisted of a short T journey or a jog.         

_[I’m home today; I’ll do it.]_

_[But I said I’d do my share!]_

Yuuri briefly received an image of their house at the Elkhorn Project, and Victor’s dirty clothes lying on the floor in front of the washing machine. The ghost of a grin passed his lips. _[You can do it twice in a row next.]_

_[You’re the sweetest soon-to-be-husband anyone could ever have.]_

_[Thank you.]_

He sat back on the sofa, feeling impossibly fond. Then Makkachin started barking at something she must have seen outside the French windows in the main bedroom, and bounded out to join him, panting and wagging her tail.

“What did you see out there, girl? Another squirrel?”

She woofed; and Yuuri, his concentration well and truly lost now, decided it would be a good time to take her for her walk. As he stood, however, he remembered what he’d put in his pocket earlier, and what he’d meant to do with it, and crossed the room to the mantel above the faux-fireplace. It was a pleasant decoration, but he intended to have a real one again in the house he and Victor were eventually planning to live in at the commune. Riverside…Parkside…He mused over the names in his head. They were good starting points, if a little dull maybe, like the names of a thousand streets from coast to coast.

“You would’ve liked running around the Elkhorn Project,” Yuuri said to Makkachin as he scratched behind her ears. Between himself and Victor, and possibly Anna earlier, he thought she must be truly itch-free and happily loved-on by now. “Come to think of it, you would’ve liked Children of Gaia too. Maybe kind of dry though.” 

As his fingers stroked through the soft warm curls of the big dog’s fur, his eyes lit across the items he’d arranged on the mantel. Victor had seen the shrine in the tin shack, and had recognized this as something similar, especially since Yuuri had added some of the same items; each a symbol of an important part of his life. Yuuri had invited Victor to add things of his own to the assortment here, though he’d said Yuuri ought to keep this for his own space, while he could perhaps clear some room on his bedside table. He’d asked Anna to bring an old framed photo of the family that included his mother, who had been as fair and ethereal as her children; and it had become the second item in his collection, the first being a photo of himself and Yuuri he’d recently taken with his aircam while they were drifting arm in arm on a swan boat.

And if Victor thought it curious that Yuuri had requested from his family a photo of his grandmother, Sayo Nishimura, who he’d only known in his early childhood, he hadn’t said. She was about his age in this one, though she was already in a wheelchair. There was a fire in her eyes, however, that seemed to burn high and bright despite the physical trappings of her body. The photo sat left of center on the mantel, with a tall white candle to its side. To the left was Freddie Mercury in his white jeans and tank top from the 1980s open-air concert. At the other end, on the right, was Victor accepting an award. Strange, Yuuri mused, to think of his personal history with this one, though the man it featured had barely been aware of his existence at the time.

And in the center, Yuuri’s favorite photo. Carla had removed this, and the others near the bed, before anything else, guessing rightly that they were the most precious. Victor’s aircam had taken it the evening Yuuri had played his favorite music out loud for the first time in months, and Victor had joined him in a dance in front of the sofa. He was sure the song was “I Want You” by Savage Garden. Victor had chosen that one. He could almost hear the old tune playing now, remembering how they’d swayed and spun and darted heated looks at each other as they’d intertwined and broken apart, again and again. Somehow all their problems had seemed to evaporate for that short time, and they’d made a world for themselves where nothing else could touch them, and there was only music and light and joy, and each other.

Smiling at the memory, he took the silver-painted horseshoe out of his pocket and carefully placed it on the mantel in front of the photo, a pleasant shiver passing through him as he recalled the heady feeling of tumbling into love and feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, on top of the world, all at a baseball game…and then watching this same little trinket fade between Victor’s fingers in the barn that day, while he did the impossible and passed a pen through it. He wasn’t sure if the horseshoe had brought him luck; but it seemed somehow to represent many stages on the journey he and Victor had taken together. A journey that, in a way, was still only just beginning.

As if Victor had caught the tail of his thoughts, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, Yuuri sensed him again.

_[It’s busy here already.]_

Yuuri laughed. _[Then why are you contacting me?]_

_[I was thinking about you.]_

_[I was just going to go on that walk.]_

_[Is that all that was going through your head?]_

Yuuri paused. They were getting better all the time at communicating this way, but it still wasn’t always easy to convey exact meanings. _[I was looking at the things on the mantel.]_ In fact, sometimes at night, if he concentrated hard enough, there almost seemed to be a faint glow around the edges, while the objects shone sharply in the candlelight, realer than real. Without any need for food offerings or mantras. Just simply and plainly, reflections of his heart.

_[I like the photo of us dancing,]_ Victor sent.

_[Me too.]_

_[We should add more photos like that.]_

Yuuri smiled. _[It’s one of my favorite things, too.]_

_[The best one will be when we’re dancing at our wedding reception.]_

_[Oh? Why is that?]_ Yuuri stroked a finger gently down the glass frame in front of him.

_[Because that’ll be the most special dance of all. And because of the song.]_

Yuuri wrinkled his brow. _[What song? We haven’t talked about that yet.]_

_[There’s really only one it can be, don’t you think?]_

Makkachin nuzzled his hand as he thought. After a moment, the beginning notes of a sweet melody filled his head, sent by Victor, and Yuuri knew it right away.

_Of course._ Tears pricked at his eyes. Victor was right. They might play other things at their wedding, like Queen and Glazunov; but _this_ one would take precedence over them all. The song that had bound them together once again, after they’d been lost and hurting in the dark, each in their own way – and they hadn’t even realized, consciously, that they’d managed to find each other.

_[I can’t remember if I told you this morning…]_ It was Victor again.

_[I love you,]_ they both sent at the same time.

“Come on, girl,” Yuuri said to Makkachin. When he removed her leash from the peg on the wall by the door, she gave a series of excited yips and jumped up, her paws reaching to his shoulders. He managed to get her back down on the floor and slipped the leash over her neck. “Where do you get all this energy from when you’re this old?” He hoped it’d be the same for him when he was that age in dog-years. Whether he and Victor were exploring where portals led…or cooking a meal together…or a hundred other things.

He didn’t sing often. Wasn’t sure if he really had the voice for it. But he didn’t care. What else could you do when you had a song in your heart?

He opened the door, Makkachin bounding out into the hall beside him, then let the door shut as they passed through the foyer, the only sounds the echoing click of the poodle’s claws against the marble floor, and his own tenor voice, mellow and clear:

_I’ll be there, with a love that will shelter you.  
I’ll be there, with a love that will see you through…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed them earlier, or would like to revisit them:
> 
> [“I Want You”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQt6jIKNwgU) by Savage Garden
> 
> [“Reach Out I’ll be There”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo) by the Four Tops
> 
> Final note:  
> Chatting with fellow writers and YOI fans is wicked flink, jacks. Find me on Tumblr [here](https://kitsunebi-uk.tumblr.com/).


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